Russia struck the city of Pokrovsk in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region with two ballistic missiles overnight, killing at least seven people, local officials said Tuesday.
At least 81 people were injured in the strikes, Pavlo Kyrylenko, head of the Donetsk regional military administration, said in a statement.
“Among the dead are five civilians, one employee of the State Emergency Service, and one soldier,” Kyrylenko said. Of the injured, four were soldiers, seven were from the State Emergency Service, 31 were police officers and 39 were civilians, including two children.
Russia struck Pokrovsk’s city center with two Iskander ballistic missiles, damaging a dozen high-rise buildings “as well as a hotel, a prosecutor’s office, a pension fund, a pharmacy, two shops, two cafes and two civilian cars,” Kyrylenko added. The second missile hit less than 40 minutes after the first, which rescuers were already responding to, according to reports.
According to several foreign correspondents and analysts covering the war in Ukraine, the Druzhba hotel and Corleone pizzeria were struck. Both are popular among journalists.
Footage from the scene posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday evening showed the upper floors of several buildings destroyed and in flames as rescue services tried to clear the rubble.
Rescue operations resumed on Tuesday morning after being brought to a halt during the night due to the “high threat of repeated shelling,” the Ukrainian interior ministry said.
Monday night’s attack bore similarities to the bombing of a pizzeria in Kramatorsk in late June, which killed 11 people. The pizzeria was also popular among international journalists and aid workers.