published by: Aashi Sadana
Last update: May 01, 2023, 11:11 PM IST
A Ukrainian serviceman from a 3rd Separate Assault Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces carries a shell as he prepares to fire a D30 howitzer at a frontline, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, near the town of Bakhmut, Ukraine (Image: Reuters)
The attack on Pavlohrad, a town and rail hub, came in the second wave of nationwide missile strikes in three days, with Moscow reportedly resuming its winter tactics of long-range strikes ahead of a counter -planned Ukrainian offensive.
Russia launched another volley of missiles at Ukraine overnight, sparking huge fires in an eastern town, damaging dozens of homes and injuring at least 34 people.
The attack on Pavlohrad, a town and rail hub, came in the second wave of nationwide missile strikes in three days, with Moscow reportedly resuming its winter tactics of long-range strikes ahead of a counter -planned Ukrainian offensive.
A huge crater had been blasted into the backyard of a debris-strewn house on the outskirts of Pavlohrad. Nearby houses were badly damaged. In the city center, the windows of a dormitory that serves a chemical plant had been blown out.
“I ran outside and saw that the garage was destroyed. Everything was on fire, shards of glass were everywhere. If we had been outside, we would have been killed,” said 61-year-old Olha Lytvynenko.
Viktoriia Suprun, 41, said she took refuge with her daughter in the hallway of the dormitory.
“We rushed into the hallway, lying on the ground. And then the wave of explosion twisted the door. If we had stayed five seconds longer, we would have been trapped here,” she said. “We didn’t sleep at night and in the morning. My child will need psychological help, it’s horrible,” she said.
Mykola Lukashuk, head of the Dnipropetrovsk regional council, said the attack damaged 19 buildings, 25 houses, three schools, three kindergartens and several shops. The 34 injured included five children, the region’s governor said.
The city is located in southeastern Ukraine, behind the main eastern and southern front lines of the war, and includes a railway junction.
Other parts of Ukraine appeared to have survived the wave of strikes unscathed, after air raid sirens sounded for hours into the night. Ukraine said it shot down 15 of the 18 incoming cruise missiles. Officials in the capital Kyiv said there were no reports of civilian casualties or damage.
A Russian-installed official in the occupied Zaporizhzhia region said Russian forces struck military targets in Pavlohrad. Ukrainian officials said an industrial company was hit, which they did not identify.
The attacks also significantly damaged electricity distribution points in the southern region of Kherson and in the central-eastern region of Dnipropetrovsk, leaving thousands of people without power, the energy ministry said.
Network repairs were expected to take several days, he said in a statement.
The attacks came just three days after Russia killed 23 civilians in an apartment building in the city of Uman with a missile, in its first major round of nationwide airstrikes in near two months.
After five months of a Russian assault that secured little new territory despite the bloodiest ground fighting of the war, Kiev is preparing to launch a counterattack using hundreds of armored vehicles and tanks supplied by the West.
On Saturday, an apparent Ukrainian drone struck a fuel storage depot in Sevastopol, the Russian navy base in Crimea, which Moscow seized in 2014. Kyiv did not directly claim responsibility but strongly criticized it. -heard, claiming the fire was part of his preparations for his attack.
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(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed)
