The authorities loyal to Russia in the Luhansk province of eastern Ukraine reported that 20 people were killed in a missile attack launched by Ukrainian forces on a bakery in one of the cities in the region. A fire broke out at an oil refinery in Volgograd, Russia, following a drone attack claimed by Kiev.
The Russian Ministry of Emergencies stated that their workers retrieved 20 bodies from the rubble on Saturday following the Ukrainian attack on a building housing a bakery in the city of Lisichansk, the third largest city in the Luhansk province in eastern Ukraine controlled by Russia. The Ministry also released a video showing emergency workers retrieving bodies and injured individuals from under the debris of the destroyed building.
On the other hand, the Russian-backed separatist forces’ leader in Luhansk, Leonid Pasechnik, was quoted by the German news agency as saying, “Ukrainian forces shelled a bakery in Lisichansk, and there are civilian casualties under the rubble.”
Meanwhile, Maria Zakharova, the spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry, stated that Western weapons were used in the attack and confirmed that dozens of civilians were inside the building at the time of the shelling.
The Luhansk media center mentioned that Ukraine shelled the bakery using the fast-moving advanced American missile rocket system “HIMARS”.
The Russian forces control the city of Lisichansk, which is located about 10 kilometers from the front line and has a population of approximately 100,000 people since the summer of 2022.
Mutual Shelling
In further field developments in the Russian-Ukrainian war, a fire broke out on Saturday at a large oil refinery in the Volgograd region in southwestern Russia following a drone attack claimed by Ukraine, according to a local official.
The governor of the region, Andrey Bocharov, reported that the air defenses and electronic jamming systems repelled a drone attack in Volgograd, specifically in the Kalachyovskiy and Zakamenskiy regions.
He stated that a fire broke out at the Volgograd refinery following the drone’s downing, noting that the fire did not result in any casualties and that the firefighters managed to contain it.
The Russian military, in a statement, mentioned that their air defense systems downed four drones in the Belgorod region and intercepted two in Volgograd and another in Rostov-on-Don.
For its part, Kyiv stated that the Russian army targeted Ukrainian locations with 14 drones and two missiles, specifying that the attacks targeted energy supply sites in the industrial Dnipropetrovsk region.
The Ukrainian army mentioned that they intercepted 9 drones out of the aforementioned number, while an official in the region reported two fires resulting from those attacks, leading to the disconnection of electricity for about 15,000 residents and the cancellation of some tram lines in the city.
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