The impact of three Russian Iskander missiles near the Ukrainian city of Kharkovthe second largest in the country, caused significant damage to an electrical station, although without causing victims, official sources informed Efe on Tuesday.
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The missiles hit Merefa, a town on the outskirts of Kharkov, last night local time.An agent of the Ukrainian Police, Andriy Dmitriev, explained to Efe. One of them partially destroyed a power station, leaving the area without power, so several groups of workers are working to restore it, he said.
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The police indicated that last week another of these missiles fell nearby, but without damaging this infrastructure, which supplies this town of some 28,000 inhabitants and others in the area.
Dmitriev added that Merefa also hosts some 10,000 displaced by the war, but “fortunately” the missiles did not cause casualties among the inhabitants of this population to which “every day people fleeing from areas occupied” by Russian troops continue to arrive.
Although they left holes in the ground up to nine meters deep and about 25 meters wide, with significant material damage to the infrastructure, one of whose buildings was destroyed, he stressed.
Members of the Kharkov Prosecutor’s Office who are investigating possible war crimes by the Russian forces traveled to the scene, detailing that the missiles also caused serious damage to the train station and a municipal building in this town.
Maxym Mozgovy, a member of the Prosecutor’s Office, told Efe that “fortunately there were no victims, not even injuries,” despite the power of this type of projectile.
The Iskander are supersonic cruise missiles with a range that according to some sources can reach five hundred kilometers, which have high precision and can overcome anti-aircraft defenses.
Kharkov, located in eastern Ukraine near the border with Russia, has about two million inhabitants in its metropolitan area, from which explosions can sometimes be heard in the distance on the war front.
According to the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the Russians are trying to secure positions in areas near the city after the Ukrainian troops managed to expel them from Kharkov.
Pro-Russians advance in Donetsk
The pro-Russian separatist leader of Donetsk, Denís Pushilin, assured that the assault on the city of Limán has begun and that half of the town, northeast of the strategic city of Sloviansk, is already occupied by Russian forces.
“A total of 28 localities in the north of Donetsk are considered liberated today. Now the active phase of the liberation of the city of Liman is underway,” he told the Russian Interfax agency. According to Pushilin, units of the Russian Federation, along with separatist militias, “entered the city itself.”
Approximately half of the city is under the control of our divisions.
The pro-Russian Donetsk News Agency said in turn that several residents of the city have confirmed that there is heavy fighting in Lima currently with artillery and the sound of explosions.
The town is an important railway junction. Before the start of hostilities it had just over 20,000 citizens. It is also close to Sloviansk, which in turn is a few kilometers north of Kramatorsk, the Ukrainian military stronghold in Donbas.
According to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Russian troops are preparing to resume the offensive against Sloviansk.
According to the Donetsk agency, pro-Russian militias and Russian troops would also have taken control of Svitlodarsk, south of Bakhmut, one of the points on which the Russian artillery is currently focused.
According to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), Russian forces appear to be advancing west of the captured city of Popasna, on the border between the Lugansk and Donetsk regions, to try to reach Bakhmut.
INTERNATIONAL WRITING
*With information from Efe
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