Russian bombs pound front line in Ukraine’s east
DONETSK REGION, Ukraine — Drone video from Ukraine’s military released Sunday shows what appears to be bodies in a civilian area in the eastern town of Toretsk, which has come under heavy Russian bombardment in recent days.
The attacks in the wartorn Donetsk region have prompted a scaled-up evacuation effort by Ukrainian rescue services.
Local officials said powerful Russian glide bombs have been used in the town, the latest flash point on the eastern front.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said Sunday that Russia had dropped more than 800 glide bombs in Ukraine in the previous week alone.
“Ukraine needs the necessary means to destroy the carriers of these bombs, including Russian combat aircraft, wherever they are. This step is essential,” he wrote in an online post.
The Soviet-era glide bombs are fitted with precision guidance systems and launched from aircraft that are out of range of air defenses. Each bomb weighs more than a ton and blasts targets to smithereens, leaving a huge crater.
Police rescuers in Toretsk helped seniors out of their homes, carrying one woman from her bed onto a stretcher.
“It’s a terrible situation, because for three days we could not evacuate,” Oksana Zharko, 48, told the Associated Press while leaving the town in a police van with family members and a cat.
“Yesterday there was an attack, and our house was destroyed — very strong, there are no walls left. Everyone is stressed, emotional, in tears. It’s very scary.”
Russian attacks in recent weeks have focused on the town of Chasiv Yar to the north, as Ukrainian commanders say their resources remain stretched, thanks largely to a months-long gap in military assistance from the United States.
Ukraine is still struggling to stabilize parts of its front line after desperately needed military assistance was approved by the U.S. in April.
Zelensky called on countries that are assisting Ukraine to further relax restrictions on using Western weapons to strike military targets inside Russia.
“Clear decisions are needed to help protect our people,” he said. “Longrange strikes and modern air defense are the foundation for stopping the daily Russian terror. I thank all our partners who understand this.”
Hours after Zelensky spoke, Ukrainian officials said Russian glide bombs had struck near a postal warehouse in Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city, in the northeast. The bombs killed an employee and injured nine people, including an 8-month-old.
According to a statement by Nova Poshta, the private postal and courier company that operates the site, the strike set at least seven delivery trucks ablaze, while damaging at least three others and the warehouse itself. One driver died.
As many as nine people remained trapped under burning wreckage, and rescue teams were combing the site Sunday evening, regional Gov. Oleh Sinegubov posted on Telegram.
Less than a day earlier, Russian missiles slammed into a town in southern Ukraine, killing seven civilians, including children, and wounding dozens, local authorities reported.
Ukrainian officials published photos of bodies under picnic blankets in a park in Vilniansk and craters in the blackened earth next to the charred remains of a building.
At least 38 people were wounded in Saturday evening’s attack, authorities said.
Meanwhile, Russia-appointed officials in Donetsk, which is partially occupied and illegally annexed by Moscow, said Ukrainian shelling Sunday wounded a 4-year-old boy and a 15-yearold girl. According to Russia’s Emergencies Ministry, four of its staff also came under shelling Sunday as they attempted to put out a fire in the Kremlin-occupied local capital, also called Donetsk.