Ukrainian rescuers working at the site of a rocket strike on a residential building in Poltava, Ukraine, on Saturday. Photo by State Emergency Service/EPA/EFE
Feb. 2 (UPI) — At least 14 Ukrainians died, including two children, and 17 others injured in a Russian strike on a residential building, Ukraine‘s nation’s emergency services reported.
The attack in central Ukraine early Saturday was “another terrorist crime,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
Three members of one family died in the bombing in Poltava: Olena Yavorska, her husband Dmytro and their 9-year-old daughter Sofia, according to Olena’s colleague, who posted a statement in Russian on Facebook.
“Russia killed our colleague and her family,” Volodymyr Popereshniuk, co-owner of Nova Poshta, a Ukranian logistics company where Olena worked, said Sunday. “Olena was a biology teacher by education, but in 2015 she joined Nova Poshta. The Yavorsky family resided on the second floor of the destroyed building.”
Olena Skliar, a nurse at the regional dermatological and venereological clinic, died at a hospital. Her son survived but is homeless.
Also killed was Anastasiia Kolvakh, an actress and co-author of the Theatre of Contemporary Dialogue’s productions, a volunteer and IT worker.
Nearly 200 people have been displaced, the state emergency service said Sunday.
Other attacks
Russia launched 42 missiles, and 123 Shahed-type attack and decoy drones against Ukraine overnight, the Air Force said. Fifty-six were shot down and 61 were lost in the airspace, according to the statement.
Ukraine and Russia are accusing each other of a war crime over a strike on a former boarding school on Saturday in Russia’s Kursk region that killed four people died, seriously injured four others with 84 more people rescued.
Ukrainian troops have been holding territory after launching a shock incursion last summer.
“There is indisputable evidence and objective monitoring results showing that the strike was carried out by Russian tactical aviation,” Ukraine’s Air Force wrote, with screenshots published from the Virazh-Tablet system allegedly showing the flight path of the Russian guided bomb.
“The launch of enemy missiles from the [Ukrainian] Sumy region was detected by Russian air defense systems,” the Russian military said in a statement Sunday.