Seven dead in Ukrainian rocket attack on Russian apartment block

By Guy Faulconbridge

MOSCOW (Reuters) – At least seven people were killed and 17 injured when an entire section of a Russian apartment block collapsed after it was hit by a Soviet-era missile launched by Ukraine and launched by Russia, Russian officials said.

In one of the deadliest attacks to date in the Belgorod region, Ukraine launched a massive missile attack using Tochka ballistic missiles and the Adler and RM-70 Vampire multiple rocket systems (MLRS), according to Russian officials.

Footage from the scene showed at least ten floors of the building collapsing. Later, as rescuers searched the rubble for survivors, the roof collapsed and people ran for their lives, dust and debris falling behind them.

The Russian Defense Ministry said the attack, which it described as a “terrorist attack on residential areas”, occurred at 08:40 GMT and included at least 12 rockets.

“Fragments of one of the launched Tochka-U missiles damaged a residential building in the city of Belgorod,” the ministry said.

According to Russian news agencies, at least seven people were killed and 17 injured, including two children. Others were still trapped under the rubble.

Both Ukraine and Russia say they do not target civilians, even though both sides have killed many civilians in the war.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the attack was a targeted attack on civilians, showing the criminality of both Ukraine and its supporters – primarily the United States and its European allies.

There was no immediate comment from Ukraine on the attack.

KHARKIV FRONT

After heavy shelling of Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, Russian forces broke through the border in recent days and said they had driven Ukrainian forces from at least nine villages in the region.

The move threatens to open a new front and has forced Ukraine to deploy additional troops to the area as Russian forces advance at key points along the front to the south and east.

Russian troops said on Sunday they had captured another four villages – Hatyshche, Krasne, Morokhovets, Oliinykove – in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region.

Russian military bloggers said Russia was exploiting its numerical superiority on the battlefield to push hard into relatively undefended areas with highly mobile small troop units that then surrounded Ukrainian positions.

Ukraine’s military chief said his country’s armed forces were facing a difficult situation in fighting in the Kharkiv region but were doing everything they could to hold the line.

“Units of the Defense Forces are engaged in fierce defensive battles, the attempts of the Russian invaders to break through our defenses have been stopped,” Oleksandr Syrskyi said.

In response to the Ukrainian attacks on Belgorod, President Vladimir Putin suggested in March that Moscow might seek to establish a buffer zone on Ukrainian territory due to the attacks on Belgorod.

Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

The conflict in eastern Ukraine began in 2014 after a pro-Russian president was overthrown in Ukraine’s Maidan Revolution and Russia annexed Crimea, with Russian-backed separatist forces fighting Ukraine’s armed forces.

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), about 14,000 people were killed there between 2014 and the end of 2021, including 3,106 civilians.

(Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Sharon Singleton)