KYIV, Ukraine – The Ukrainian village of Ocheretyne has been hit by fighting, drone footage obtained by The Associated Press shows. The village has been targeted by Russian forces in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.
Russian troops have been advancing into the area, attacking Kiev’s depleted and ammunition-deprived forces with artillery, drones and bombs. The Ukrainian military has acknowledged that the Russians have gained a “safe foothold” in Ocheretyne, which had a population of about 3,000 before the war, but says fighting continues.
Residents struggled to flee the village, including a 98-year-old woman who walked nearly 10 kilometers (6 miles) alone last week, wearing a pair of flip-flops and supported by a cane, until she reached the Ukrainian front lines.
Not a single person is seen in the footage and no building in Ocheretyne appears to have been left untouched by the fighting. Most houses, apartment blocks and other buildings appear damaged beyond repair, and many homes have been turned into piles of wood and bricks. A factory on the outskirts was also heavily damaged.
The footage also shows smoke coming from several homes and fires in at least two buildings.
Elsewhere, Russia has in recent weeks stepped up attacks on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, in a bid to attack the region’s energy infrastructure and terrorize its 1.3 million residents.
Four people were injured and a two-story civilian building was damaged and set on fire overnight after Russian forces attacked Kharkiv in northeastern Ukraine with drone blasts, regional governor Oleh Syniehubov said on Saturday.
The four, including a 13-year-old boy, were injured by falling debris, he said on the Telegram messaging app.
Russian state agency RIA reported on Saturday that Moscow forces attacked a drone warehouse in Kharkiv that had been used by Ukrainian troops overnight, citing Sergei Lebedev, described as a coordinator of local pro-Moscow guerrillas. His comments could not be independently verified.
Russian forces continued to attack Kharkiv and the surrounding area on Saturday, according to updates posted by Syniehubov and other Ukrainian officials on the messaging app Telegram. An attack hit a civilian business in the city’s industrial district, injuring at least five people, Syniehubov said. A new attack killed a 49-year-old civilian outside his home in Slobozhanske, a village northeast of the city, the governor said.
In the Black Sea port of Odesa, which has been repeatedly targeted in recent days, three people were injured in a rocket attack on “civilian infrastructure”, regional governor Oleh Kiper said.
The Ukrainian military said Russia launched a total of 13 Shahed drones into the Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions of eastern Ukraine overnight, all of which were shot down by Ukrainian air defenses.
Ukraine’s Energy Ministry said Saturday that night attacks damaged an electrical substation in the Dnipropetrovsk region, briefly depriving homes and businesses of power.
According to Serhii Lysak, governor of the province, falling drone debris damaged critical infrastructure and three private homes, one of which caught fire. Two residents were hospitalized.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said Saturday that its forces overnight shot down four U.S.-supplied long-range ATACMS missiles over the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014. The ministry did not provide further details.
Ukraine recently began using missiles, secretly supplied by the United States, to target areas controlled by Russia, including a military airfield in Crimea and another area east of the occupied city of Berdyansk, U.S. officials said last week.
Long sought after by Ukrainian leaders, the new missiles provide Ukraine with almost twice the strike distance – up to 300 kilometers (190 miles) – than the medium-range version of the weapons it received from the US last October.
A Ukrainian drone also damaged telecommunications infrastructure on the outskirts of Belgorod, a Russian city about 50 kilometers (31 miles) from the border with Ukraine, according to the local governor. Vyacheslav Gladkov did not say what the site was used for.
Hours later, Gladkov reported that five people in Belgorod were hospitalized with shrapnel and other injuries following a powerful explosion on Saturday that also damaged around 30 private homes and sparked two fires. He did not immediately clarify what caused the explosions.
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