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Euronews
Euronews
Gavin Blackburn

Zelenskyy slams 'brutal' Russian strike that killed 21 pensioners in Donetsk

At least 21 people have been killed after a Russian glide bomb struck a village in eastern Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and a regional official said.

The bomb hit the village of Yarova in the Donetsk region, Zelenskyy said in a post on X, adding that the victims were older people who were lined up to receive their pensions.

Zelenskyy slammed the "frankly brutal" attack, urging the international community to make Russia pay economically for its full-scale invasion through additional sanctions.

"The world should not remain silent," Zelenskyy wrote. "The world should not remain inactive. The United States needs a reaction. Europe needs a reaction. The G20 needs a reaction. Strong action is needed so that Russia stops bringing death."

Donetsk Governor Vadym Filashkin said that 21 others were wounded in the attack.

"This is not warfare. This is pure terrorism," he wrote in a post on Telegram.

Rescue workers clear the rubble of the Cabinet of Ministers building damaged after a Russian attack in Kyiv, 8 September, 2025 (Rescue workers clear the rubble of the Cabinet of Ministers building damaged after a Russian attack in Kyiv, 8 September, 2025)

Yarova is located less than 10 kilometres from the front line in the eastern Ukrainian region.

It was occupied by Russia in 2022, but was then liberated by Ukraine’s armed forces later the same year.

With US-led peace efforts making no headway in recent months, Russia has escalated its aerial barrages on Ukraine.

On Sunday, the capital Kyiv was hit with drones and missiles in the largest aerial attack since Russia's all-out war in Ukraine began in February 2022.

That strike also hit Ukraine's main parliament building for the first time since the full-scale invasion.

Glide bombs are retrofitted Soviet-era weapons that have laid waste to eastern Ukraine for months.

Some of them now weigh more than 1,300 kilograms, six times bigger than when they were first used in battle in 2022.

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