Europe

Death toll rises to 28 after shelling of Lysychansk bakery, Russia says

Moscow claims Ukraine used US-supplied weapons to attack city in occupied region of Luhansk

Ukrainian officials have not made any statement on the incident in Lysychansk. Photograph: Tyler Hicks/New York Times

Sun Feb 4 2024 - 08:47

The death toll from what Russia said was a Ukrainian attack on Lysychansk – a city in the Moscow-controlled Ukrainian region of Luhansk – has risen to 28, including a child, Russia’s ministry for emergencies said on Sunday.

The ministry said 10 people were rescued from under the rubble following a Ukrainian attack on a building housing a bakery in Lysychansk.

"The search and rescue operation continues," the ministry said on the Telegram messaging app.

The Russian-controlled Luhansk Information Centre said on its Telegram the shelling by US-supplied High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (Himars) occurred on Saturday afternoon.

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From the design and colour of the building and a sign matching file imagery of the area, Reuters was able to confirm the location of a video the Russian ministry shared. It matches a location on Google maps identified as the Adriatic Restaurant on Moskovska Street, Lysychansk.

However, Reuters was unable to independently verify the date of the footage filmed, or of any other details of the report coming out of an area Russia said it annexed in 2022.

Ukrainian officials have not made any statement on the incident.

Russia took control of Lysychansk in July 2022 after months of heavy fighting. Only about a tenth of Lysychansk’s pre-war population of 110,000 remain in the city, according to Ukrainian officials.

Both Moscow and Kyiv have increasingly relied on longer-range attacks this winter amid largely unchanged positions on the front line in the nearly two-year-old war.

However, Ukrainian forces have come under intense Russian attack over the past 24 hours, with continuous assaults, Ukraine’s general staff said in a statement on Sunday.

Fighting has been particularly fierce in the eastern city of Avdiivka, where Moscow is attempting to encircle Kyiv’s troops, while Ukrainian forces have also been on the defensive in Kupiansk, Lyman, Bakhmut and Zaporizhzhia, officials said.

The military administration for Ukraine’s Sumy region said on Sunday that Russian forces had shelled the region in 16 separate attacks the previous day, firing on the border communities of Yunakivka, Bilopillia, Krasnopillia, Velyka Pysarivka, and Esman.– Reuters/AP

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