A Russian strike on Tuesday killed 24 people waiting for pension payments in a front-line town of eastern Ukraine where Moscow is massing troops for a large-scale offensive, according to officials.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky posted a video showing several corpses on the ground near a burned-out minivan and playground — images AFP said it could not independently verify.
“A brutally savage Russian airstrike with an aerial bomb on the rural settlement of Yarova in the Donetsk region. Directly on people. Ordinary civilians. At the very moment when pensions were being disbursed,” Zelensky wrote.
Russia has claimed the industrial Donetsk region as part of its territory despite not having full control over it. Kyiv said the Kremlin has gathered about 100,000 troops at a key part of the front line in preparation for a new offensive.
The interior ministry said 24 people were killed, while the army reported that Moscow had used a glide bomb — a weapon fitted with wings to strike targets dozens of kilometres away.
Yarova, a rural settlement located about eight kilometres (five miles) from the front line, had a pre-war population of around 1,900 people.
AFP journalists in eastern Ukraine witnessed mourners outside a morgue where staff had laid out at least 13 bodies in black bags.
Zelensky called on Ukraine’s allies to respond to the attack.
“A response is needed from the United States. A response is needed from Europe. A response is needed from the G20,” he said. “Strong actions are needed to make Russia stop bringing death.”
Ukraine’s prosecutor general said it had launched a war crimes investigation into the strike.
The Ukrainian postal service, Ukrposhta, confirmed that one of its vehicles was damaged and that its local department head, identified as Yulia, was hospitalised. The organisation, which delivers public services in front-line areas, said it would change how pensions and other services are distributed in the region.
Russian forces have been advancing in Donetsk for months, Kyiv said, concentrating firepower on the region and moving in troops from other parts of the front. Authorities there have urged civilians to evacuate since the early days of the invasion in February 2022.
Ukrainian commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrsky said this week that Russian forces outnumbered Ukrainian troops threefold in some areas and sixfold in others where Moscow has focused its offensive.
US President Donald Trump said he has been working in recent weeks to find a way to end the war, but admitted he has little to show for his efforts.
The latest strike comes just days after a Russian missile hit Ukraine’s government headquarters in central Kyiv for the first time in the three-and-a-half-year war.
Source:Africa News