Drone footage shows Ukrainian village reduced to ruins as residents flee Russian advance – Chicago Tribune

The Ukrainian village of Ocheretyne has been ravaged by fighting, according to drone footage obtained by The Associated Press. The village has been a target for Russian forces in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.

Russian troops are advancing in the area, bombarding Kiev’s depleted forces with artillery, drones and bombs. The Ukrainian military has acknowledged that the Russians have gained a foothold in Ocheretyne, which had a population of about 3,000 before the war, but says fighting continues.

Residents have tried to flee the village, including a 98-year-old woman who last week walked almost 10 kilometers alone, in slippers and supported by a walking stick, until she reached the Ukrainian front line.

Not a single person can be seen in the footage and no building in Ocheretyne appears to have been untouched by the fighting. Most homes, apartment buildings and other buildings appear damaged beyond repair, with many destroyed in piles of wood and brick. A factory on the outskirts was also badly damaged.

The footage also shows smoke rising from several homes and fires burning in at least two buildings.

Elsewhere, Russia has stepped up attacks on Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, in recent weeks in a bid to destroy 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 after Russian forces attacked Kharkiv, northeastern Ukraine, with exploding drones, regional governor Oleh Syniehubov said on Saturday.

The four, including a 13-year-old, were injured by falling debris, he said on the messaging app Telegram.

Russia’s state agency RIA reported on Saturday that Moscow’s armed forces had attacked a drone warehouse in Kharkov used by Ukrainian forces overnight, citing Sergei Lebedev, described as a coordinator of local pro-Moscow guerrillas . His comments could not be independently verified.

Syniehubov said Russia also bombed Kharkiv on Friday, damaging residential buildings and starting a fire. An 82-year-old woman was killed and two men were injured.

The Ukrainian military said Russia launched a total of 13 Shahed drones in the Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions of eastern Ukraine last night, all of which were shot down by Ukrainian air defenses.

Ukraine’s Energy Ministry said on Saturday that the overnight strikes damaged an electricity station in the Dnipropetrovsk region, briefly depriving households and businesses of power.

According to Serhii Lysak, the governor of the province, falling drone debris damaged unspecified “critical infrastructure” and three private houses, one of which caught fire. Two residents, a man and a woman, were rushed to hospital.

Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed early Saturday that its forces overnight shot down four US-supplied ATACMS long-range missiles over the Crimean peninsula, which Moscow illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014. The ministry provided no further details.

Ukraine recently began using the missiles, secretly supplied by the United States, to hit Russian-occupied areas, including a military airfield in Crimea and another area east of the occupied city of Berdyansk, U.S. officials said. officials last week.

The new missiles, long sought by Ukrainian leaders, will give Ukraine almost double the attack range – up to 300 kilometers (190 miles) – than it had with the mid-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 from the Ukrainian border, the local governor said. Vyacheslav Gladkov did not say what the site was used for.