MOSCOW/ KHARKIV: Russian forces took control of Ocheretyne village in the eastern Donetsk region of Ukraine on Sunday.
The village, which lies northwest of the onetime Ukrainian stronghold of Avdiivka which Russia captured in February, had a pre-war population of around 3,000.
Ukrainian officials did not comment, and no mention of Ocheretnye was made in the evening report of the Armed Forces General Staff. But unofficial Ukrainian war bloggers, including the popular Deep State Map site, indicated that Russia was in control of the village.
Russia made slow but steady advances in eastern Ukraine since taking Avdiivka, with a string of villages in the area falling to Moscow’s forces.
Kharkiv Pounded Again
Separately, Russian attacks on Orthodox Easter Sunday caused the death of a woman who was buried under rubble. At least 17 others were injured in Ukraine’s northeastern city of Kharkiv and the surrounding region, regional officials said.
Regional Governor Oleh Syniehubov, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said six people were hurt in an overnight drone attack on the Osnovyanskyi district of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city.
An attack hurt 10 more later in the day when aerial bombs hit the city centre. “The next time it could hit my house. Why did it hit here? Just who is here? And on such a holy day. How? I cannot grasp it at all…” Natalia Avilova-Patrikeyeva said outside an apartment building with shattered balconies and windows blown out.
“I thought that at least on this day it would remain calm. At four in the morning there also was a strike. I don’t sleep, I don’t sleep at all.”
Kharkiv resisted a weeks-long Russian onslaught in the early days of the February 2022 Russian invasion and has been a frequent target of attacks in recent weeks.
Though Russia says it does not attack civilian sites. attacks have hit apartment blocks, schools and medical institutions across Ukraine.
As stunned residents milled about the courtyard outside a bloc of flats or surveyed debris in apartments or in stairwells, forensic experts were combing the ground for pieces of shrapnel.
“The explosion wave kicked out the door and I hid under the table. When I realised what was happening, there was smoke everywhere,” said resident Roza Kuzmenko. “One woman from our block was wounded, the ambulance took her. Thank God, I only have a scratch (on my arm).”
Syniehubov also reported the death of an 88-year-old woman in the shelling of the village of Monachynivka, east of Kharkiv. Rescuers recovered her body from the rubble. A man was injured.
(REUTERS)
