The bombing of a bakery in the city of Lisichansk, in the occupied region of Lugansk, eastern Ukraine, left at least 20 dead, the occupation authorities designated by Moscow reported this Saturday, February 3, who attributed the attack to the forces of Kiev.
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A Ukrainian bombing that hit a bakery in the occupied city of Lisichansk, in the east of the country, left at least 20 dead, Russian authorities reported on Saturday, February 3, who said they fear that there are more victims among the people who remain trapped between the rubble.
Lisichansk, in the Lugansk region, fell to Russian forces in the summer of 2022 after violent combat.
The front in eastern Ukraine has barely moved for months, but fighting remains bloody and shelling has intensified on both sides this winter.
“In Lisichansk, employees of the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry removed 20 bodies of victims from the rubble,” the ministry said on Telegram.
The same source posted a video of rescuers working in the dark, pulling a body from the rubble before discovering an injured woman who was carried away on a stretcher.
The ministry had previously said it planned to continue the search “all night” and that rescuers had so far “saved 10 people” from the rubble.
Leonid Pasechnik, the Russian-installed governor of Luhansk, accused Kiev forces of attacking a busy bakery that he said is known for having fresh produce on weekends.
A man in “serious condition” was hospitalized in the city of Lugansk, according to pro-Russian authorities.
Russian news agency RIA Novosti posted a video of a destroyed buildingwhere rescuers are also seen removing a completely crushed vehicle from the rubble.
The single-story building sported a large sign with the name “Adriatic Restaurant” and appeared completely destroyed, reduced to rubble.
Lisichansk, located 15 kilometers from Ukrainian-controlled territory, had a population of 111,000 before the Russian offensive began.
Russian forces took control of this city in the summer of 2022, as well as the city of Severodonetsk, after one of the most brutal battles since the start of the offensive in February of that year.
Drones shot down
On the Ukrainian side, the Air Force declared on Saturday that it had shot down nine of the 14 drones launched by Russia in southern and central Ukraine during the early hours.
“Ukraine destroyed nine enemy drones in the Dnipro, Odessa, Mykolaiv and Zhytomyr regions,” the kyiv Air Force said.
Most of the Iranian-made Shahed drones targeted “energy infrastructure” in the central Dnipro region, where thousands of people are without electricity, the same source said.
The power outages mainly affected Kryvoy Rog, the hometown of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Since beginning its offensive in Ukraine, Russia has attacked the country's energy infrastructure, leaving thousands of people without heat during an intense campaign last year.
For his part, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky praised his troops for attacking Moscow's forces far from the battlefield, “both on land and at sea.”
The statement comes two days after Kiev announced it had destroyed a Russian warship off the coast of Crimea, and as a fire hit a major refinery in the Volgograd region of southwestern Russia on Saturday, after of a drone attack claimed by Ukraine.
“After the fall of a downed drone, a fire broke out at the Volgograd refinery,” without causing any casualties, local governor Andrei Botcharov said on Telegram.
Early in the morning, emergency services, cited by the TASS agency, stated that the fire had been extinguished.
The fire at the Volgograd refinery It was “the result of a successful drone attack by the SBU,” Ukrainian security services told AFP.s, a Ukrainian security source told AFP.
Owned by the giant Lukoil, the refinery claims on its website to be “the largest producer of petroleum products in the Southern Federal District,” which groups eight regions in southwestern Russia.
Since the start of the offensive against kyiv in February 2022, Russian territory has periodically been the target of attacks and drone strikes attributed to kyiv.
With AFP and Reuters
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