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Six civilians were killed and eight wounded in Russian shelling of Kostiantynivka in eastern Ukraine on Sunday morning, a senior Ukrainian official has said.
Kostiantynivka, home to about 70,000 people before the war, is just 12.5 miles west of Bakhmut, the epicentre of fighting for at least eight months as Russian forces try to capture the city.
“Russians have carried out massive shelling of the town of Kostiantynivka,” Andriy Yermak, head of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff, said on the Telegram messaging app.
He said 16 apartment buildings, eight private houses, a kindergarten and an administrative building were damaged.
Yermak added photos showing the partial destruction of buildings and craters from explosions.
Reuters could not independently verify the authenticity of the photos or the number of casualties.
Elsewhere, Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky has lashed out at the start of Russia’s month-long UNSecurity Council presidency, calling the move “absurd and destructive”.
Russia has taken up the monthly presidency of the 15-member UN Security Council from Saturday, despite the fact that Vladimir Putin has been accused of war crimes and was issued an arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court.
