Bakery bombing in occupied Ukrainian city leaves 20 dead in escalating conflict

A photo published by the Russian Emergencies Ministry on February 3, 2024, showing the ruins of a bakery after a bombing in the occupied eastern Ukrainian city of Lysychansk afp_tickers

This content was published on February 3, 2024 – 23:02 July, February 3, 2024 – 23:02

(AFP)

Russian authorities announced that a Ukrainian bombing targeted a bakery in the occupied eastern Ukrainian city of Lysychansk, killing at least 20 people, expressing their fear that the number of victims would rise.

Lysychansk, located in the Luhansk region, fell into the hands of Russian forces in the summer of 2022 after a violent battle.

The front in eastern Ukraine has barely moved for months, but the fighting is still bloody and the intensity of bombing between the Russians and Ukrainians has escalated this winter.

“In Lysichansk, employees of the Russian Emergencies Ministry found the bodies of 20 people under the rubble,” the Russian Emergencies Ministry wrote on Telegram. She posted a video of paramedics working in the dark and extracting a body from under the rubble before they found an injured woman who was evacuated on a stretcher.

The ministry said earlier that it intended to continue the search “throughout the night” and that paramedics had “so far rescued ten people” from under the rubble.

Leonid Pasichnik, the Russian-appointed governor of Lugansk, accused Ukrainian forces of targeting a busy bakery that he said was known for serving fresh bread on weekends.

The Russian RIA Novosti news agency published a video clip of a destroyed building, which also shows rescuers pulling a wrecked car from under the rubble.

The one-story building had a large sign reading “Adriatic Restaurant” and appeared completely destroyed and reduced to rubble.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said that Western weapons were used in the bombing and expressed its hope for “quick and unconditional condemnation” of the attack from international organizations.

Lysychansk is located 15 kilometers from Ukrainian-controlled territory, and had a population of 111,000 before the Russian attack began. Russian forces took control of it in the summer of 2022, as well as Severodonetsk, after one of the fiercest battles since the start of the attack in February 2022.

– Dropping drones –

On the Ukrainian side, the Air Force announced on Saturday that it had shot down nine out of 14 drones launched by Russia in central and southern Ukraine on Friday night.

“Ukraine destroyed nine enemy drones in the Dnipro, Odessa, Mykolaiv and Zhytomir regions,” the Kiev Air Force said.

Most of the Iranian-made Shahed aircraft targeted “energy infrastructure” in the Dnipro region, where thousands of people are deprived of electricity, according to the same source.

The power outages mainly affected the city of Kryvyi Ryg, the birthplace of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

The governor of the Dnipro region, Sergei Lysak, said that 15,000 residents of Kryvyi Ryg are deprived of electricity after the drone attack.

Since it began its attack in Ukraine, Russia has targeted the country’s energy infrastructure, leaving thousands without heating.

For his part, Zelensky praised his forces’ ability to strike Russian forces far from the battlefield “both on land and at sea.”

Zelensky’s statement comes two days after Kiev announced that it destroyed a Russian warship off the coast of the Crimean Peninsula, and after a fire broke out in a major refinery in the Volgograd region in southwestern Russia on Saturday after a drone attack for which Ukraine claimed responsibility.

Local governor Andrey Bocharov said via Telegram, “After a drone crashed, a fire broke out at the Volgograd refinery,” but no casualties were reported. Early in the morning, TASS reported that the fire had been extinguished, citing emergency services.

A Ukrainian security source told AFP that the fire at the Volgograd refinery was “the result of a successful drone attack by the Ukrainian security service.”

The refinery, owned by the giant Lukoil, says on its website that it is “the largest producer of petroleum products in the Southern Federal Territory,” which includes eight regions in southwestern Russia.

Since the start of the attack on Ukraine in February 2022, Russian territory has been regularly targeted by strikes and drone attacks attributed to Kiev.

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2024-02-03 22:02:01