Death toll after Russian missile strike on Chasiv Yar rises to 45

Kyiv, Jul 13 (EFE).- The number of people who died after Russia struck a residential building in the Ukrainian village of Chasiv Yar in the Donetsk region has risen to 45, authorities said Wednesday.

The Russian missile attack took place over the weekend. Since then, nine people have been pulled from under the rubble alive, the war-torn country’s state emergency services wrote on Telegram, according to Ukrinform news agency.

“Four more bodies of victims were found (in general, 45 bodies were recovered, including that of a child),” the statement said.

Search and rescue teams have been working to pull out those still trapped under the rubble of the five-story building wrecked in one of the deadliest attacks launched by Russia since its invasion on February 24.

The Ukrainian army has repelled Russian advances in the eastern region of Donetsk, Ukraine’s General Staff of the Armed Forces said in a Telegram post on Wednesday.

“​​Ukrainian defenders have successfully repulsed a Russian assault toward the settlements of Dovhenke and Dolyna in the Sloviansk direction,” the statement read.

However, it is not ruled out that the “enemy will continue to conduct offensive operations to improve their tactical position and create favorable conditions for conducting an offensive towards Izium – Sloviansk,” it added.

In the northeastern city of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest, Russia is “holding a group of troops from the Western and Eastern Military Districts, concentrating their main efforts on defense,” according to the general staff.

Russian soldiers, on the other hand, have also been trying to halt Ukrainian advances in some of the areas under their control in the south of the country such as Kherson and Zaporizhia.EFE

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