Russian missiles kill 7 in Ukrainian city, Kiev accuses Moscow of targeting rescue workers

The death toll from two Russian missile attacks on an apartment block and other buildings in an eastern Ukrainian city has risen to seven and 81 people have been injured, officials said Tuesday. Officials have accused the Kremlin’s forces of targeting rescue workers. Officials said on Monday evening two Russian missiles landed in the downtown area of ​​Pokrovsk in the eastern Donetsk region, which is partially controlled by Russia. Donetsk governor Pavlo Kirilenko said the dead included five civilians, a rescuer and a soldier. Among the injured were 39 civilians, including two children.

According to Kirilenko, the Iskander missiles, which have an advanced guidance system that increases their accuracy, strike within 40 minutes of each other. Since the start of the war, Russia has aimed artillery and missiles at the exact spot it had struck about 30 minutes earlier, often hitting emergency personnel deployed to the scene. It’s a tactic, called the double tap in military jargon, that was also used by the Russians in the Syrian civil war.

“All (police) were there because they were needed, they were doing their bit to rescue people after the first attack,” Ivan Vyhievsky, the head of Ukraine’s national police, said on Tuesday. “They knew there were injured people under the rubble. They needed to react, dig, extract, save. And the enemy deliberately attacked a second time. Kirilenko said 12 multi-storey buildings were damaged, as well as a hotel, a pharmacy, two stores and two cafes. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Moscow of trying to leave nothing but broken and scorched stones in eastern Ukraine.