A Russian glide bomb attack on a village near the front line in eastern Ukraine has killed 21 civilians waiting to collect pension payments, Ukrainian officials say of the latest barrage from Moscow undermining any diplomatic momentum to end the war.
Vadym Filashkin, governor of the eastern region of Donetsk, said 21 people were killed and 21 wounded on Tuesday in the village of Yarova.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned the strike in Yarova, which lies in a region that has seen some of the war’s fiercest fighting recently.
“A brutally savage Russian airstrike,” he said in a post on X. “Directly on people. Ordinary civilians. … There are no words.”
The office of Ukraine’s prosecutor general said it had launched a war crime investigation.
A video in the post showed numerous bodies strewn on the ground next to a damaged vehicle belonging to Ukraine’s national post service.
Russia has claimed Donetsk as its own and partially controls the Ukrainian region on its border. Kyiv says the Kremlin has concentrated 100,000 soldiers at a key part of the front line for a renewed offensive there.
There was no immediate comment from Moscow. Both Russia and Ukraine deny targeting civilians in the war that Russia launched in February 2022, but thousands of civilians have been killed in the conflict, the vast majority of them Ukrainian.
Victims ‘obviously civilians’
Speaking from Kharkiv, Al Jazeera’s Zein Basravi said the attack occurred 8km (5 miles) from the latest Russian front-line position “and only about 2.5km [1.5 miles] from the edge of the so-called grey zone, this no-man’s land where most of the fighting happens”.
“It really does tell you how close some of these Ukrainian communities still live not only from front-line fighting [but also] these Russian missiles and air strikes,” he said.
He said Ukrainians told him it would have been obvious that the pensioners waiting to collect their monthly state stipend were civilians.
“What was a lifeline for the people in this community became a kill zone because of this Russian air attack,” he said.
Zelenskyy said the latest attack on civilians required a strong response from the international community and called on Kyiv’s allies in the United States, Europe and other Group of 20 nations to act.
“The Russians continue to destroy lives but avoid new strong sanctions and new strong strikes,” the president said. “Strong action is needed to stop Russia from bringing death.”
But Basravi said the latest strike showed Russia was continuing to escalate its attacks, dimming the hopes of any ceasefire or peace agreement.
Escalating attacks
Russian President Vladimir Putin has escalated attacks in Ukraine since his summit on August 15 in Alaska with US President Donald Trump, who has been pushing for a halt in the fighting.
Trump has threatened further sanctions on Russia if it does not comply but so far has little to show for his efforts to end the war.
On Sunday, Russia battered Ukraine with its largest air attack since the war began, killing at least four people across the country and setting dozens of buildings on fire in the capital, Kyiv, including the main seat of the government, according to officials.
The strike was the first time the government headquarters had been hit in the three-and-a-half-year war, officials said.
Russian forces launched 810 drones and 13 missiles in the attack before dawn on Sunday, Ukraine’s air force said, causing damage across the north, south and east of the country, including the cities of Zaporizhzhia, Kryvyi Rih and Odesa and in the Sumy and Chernihiv regions.
Kyiv has come under heavy attack in the past month with large numbers of civilians being killed.
