KRAMATORSK, Ukraine — Russian missiles fell in Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine on Thursday, hitting a town that is a key base of Ukrainian military operations amid warnings from Kyiv Moscow opened a new offensive in the 11 month old war.
The strike came hours before Russian President Vladimir V. Putin was due to rally the country’s support for his invasion of Ukraine in a speech on Wednesday Anniversary of the Soviet triumph over the Nazis in Stalingrada pivotal battle of World War II and one that many Russians consider a symbol of wartime heroism.
Russian attacks intensified in Kramatorsk, a longtime command center of the Ukrainian military and a base of Ukrainian defenses in the town of Bakhmut, which Russia was nearing capture after months of brutal fighting. The fall of Bakhmut would be Moscow’s first significant military victory since the summer, though it meant a huge loss of Russian and Ukrainian lives.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that a large Russian troop surge in occupied parts of eastern Ukraine, coupled with a sharp increase in artillery attacks in the east, signals the start of a new Russian offensive.
At least three people were killed and more than a dozen others injured on Wednesday evening when a missile slammed into a four-storey apartment complex in Kramatorsk, reducing much of the building to smoking ruins.
As rescuers furiously dug through the rubble Thursday, trying to find an entrance into a basement where local residents may have been hiding, there was a flash and two more rockets struck nearby, sending firefighters in all directions.
A missile hit a yard, maiming several vehicles and a number of garages, and another got stuck in the middle of the street. Residents fled to Keller when police warned more rockets were coming.
The head of the regional military administration, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said five people were injured in Thursday’s strikes, which hit a school, a clinic and more than a dozen buildings.
At a hospital near a blast site, Anna Olendarenko, 51, said two of her friends, a married couple, were injured, the husband suffered a severe concussion and the wife a broken arm.
“Terrible doesn’t even describe it,” she said. “You can’t take care of it.”
Kramatorsk is the largest Ukrainian city near the epicenter of the fighting for the eastern Donbass region. It’s a hive of military activity, with the number of soldiers and armored personnel carriers increasing in recent days. Bakhmut is about 20 miles away and the entire area is bombarded by Russian ordnance almost daily.
It was unclear why the apartment building might have been attacked. At the blast site, the mangled and burned remains of several vehicles looked like they could belong to the military.
In April, at least 50 people were killed and many more injured in a missile attack on the United States Kramatorsk railway station. The attacks continue: A Russian missile landed right in front of a kindergarten in the city last week, leaving one in its wake gaping crater. On Wednesday, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office said it was open a war crimes investigation into the latest attack.
“This is not a repeat of history; this is the daily reality of our country,” Mr Zelensky said in a statement following Wednesday’s attack.
Carly Olson in New York and Matthew Mpoke Bigg Reporting contributed in London.
