A Russian missile strike on the eastern Ukraine town of Pokrovsk on Saturday (Jan 6) killed at least 11 people, including five children, said head of the Donetsk region, Vadim Filashkin. “The main blow was dealt to Pokrovsk and Rivne in the community of Myrnograd,” Filashkin said in a post on Telegram. Eight people were injured in the strikes.
Filashkin also released photographs showing rescue workers working through the debris of the attack which damaged six houses.
Before the war started, Pokrovsk had a population of 60,000. The town had been hit by a deadly bombardment in August last year, which killed nine and injured 82 others. Pokrovsk is around 50 kilometres away from the front line of the fighting.
Russian missiles hit residential area in Kharkiv
The strikes in Pokrovsk come four days after Russian missiles hit a residential area in Ukraine’s Kharkiv. In a post on Telegram, regional governor Oleh Synehubov the attack on Tuesday killed a 91-year-old woman and injured 44 civilians.
Many residential buildings in the area appeared heavily damaged as emergency workers evacuated the casualties on-site.
Meanwhile, on Saturday, the Kharkiv region prosecutor’s office provided further evidence that Russia had attacked Ukraine with missiles supplied by North Korea. This was the first time that missiles supplied by North Korea were used in the war, a senior adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, the news agency Reuters reported.
“This missile is similar to one of the North Korean missiles. I am not going to name the exact type. However, according to information that is publicly available on the internet, the images that depict the North Korean (military) parades, the nozzles and the rear part are very similar. And in fact, that North Korean missile type was developed on the base of (Russian) Iskander missiles, which is why they are so similar. That is why we are leaning towards the version that this may be a missile which was supplied by North Korea,” Kharkiv region prosecutor’s office’s spokesperson Dmytro Chubenko said.
“Most likely, this missile was either supplied by North Korea or was produced only recently using blueprints and technologies supplied by Russia to third countries or to North Korea,” he added.
(With inputs from agencies)
