Ukrainian officials on Tuesday accused the Kremlin’s forces of targeting rescue workers by hitting residential buildings with two consecutive missiles — the first one to draw crews to the scene and the second one to wound or kill them.
The strikes Monday evening in the downtown district of the city of Pokrovsk killed at least seven people, including an emergency official, and wounded more than 80 others, most of them police officers, emergency workers and soldiers who rushed to assist residents, Ukrainian officials said.
The Russian missiles slammed into the center of Pokrovsk in the eastern Donetsk region, which is partially occupied by Russia. Emergency crews were still removing rubble on Tuesday. The Iskander missiles, which have an advanced guidance system that increases their accuracy, hit within 40 minutes of each other, according to Donetsk Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said.
Since the start of the war, Russia has used artillery and missiles to hit targets and then struck the exact same spot around 30 minutes later, often hitting emergency teams responding to the first blast. The tactic is called a “double tap” in military jargon. Russians used the same method in Syria’s civil war.
“All of (the police) were there because they were needed, putting their efforts into rescuing people after the first strike,” Ivan Vyhivskyi, chief of Ukraine’s National Police, said Tuesday. “They knew that under the rubble were the injured — they needed to react, to dig, to retrieve, to save. And the enemy deliberately struck the second time.”
Russia’s Ministry of Defense claimed it hit a Ukrainian army command post in Pokrovsk. Neither side’s claims could be independently verified.
Among those injured was Volodymyr Nikulin, a police officer originally from the now Russian-occupied port city of Mariupol.
Arriving at the scene after the first missile strike, Nikulin was wounded in the second strike when shrapnel pierced his left lung and left hand.
“Today is not my happy day because Russian criminals committed another awful crime in Pokrovsk,” he said in a video he sent to The Associated Press from a hospital ward.
In the video, he is seen lying on a bed shirtless, with dried blood on his side and covering his left hand. He moves with pain to show his wounds.
Pointing his camera to show other wounded security forces in the ward, he says: “Look, these are Ukrainian heroes who helped (injured) people.”
He told the National Police in a video that he feared a second strike but went to help anyway.
There were so many injured at the hospital that Nikulin was still waiting for surgery on Tuesday morning. He was later transported to a hospital in Dnipro, where he was to have the shrapnel removed.
Nikulin had already witnessed some of the war’s horrors. He helped an AP team escape after Russian troops that besieged Mariupol entered the downtown area and searched for them.
He was featured in the award-winning documentary “20 Days in Mariupol," a joint project between The Associated Press and PBS “Frontline” about the earliest phase of the invasion of Mariupol.
In a statement, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Ukraine, Denise Brown, described the latest attack as “absolutely ruthless” and said it was “a serious breach" of international law and violated "any principle of humanity.”
Since the beginning of Russia’s invasion in February 2022, 78 employees of Ukraine's State Emergency Service have been killed and 280 have been wounded while responding to Russian missile strikes, according to agency spokesperson Col. Oleksandr Khorunzhyi.
Ukrainian officials say rescuers are protected by international conventions as they are providing humanitarian assistance and are not engaged in combat operations.
The head of the Pokrovsk city administration, Serhii Dobriak, described the attacks as “a typical Russian scenario," with 30 to 40 minutes between missiles.
“When rescuers come to save people’s lives, another rocket arrives. And the number of casualties increases,” he said in a video comment to local media.
Kyrylenko, the regional governor, said that 12 multistory buildings were damaged in Pokrovsk, as well as a hotel, a pharmacy, two stores and two cafes.
The roof of one building was partially demolished, and rubble filled the sidewalk outside. Across the road, a children's playground was wrecked.
Russian missiles, drones and artillery have repeatedly struck civilian areas in the war. The Kremlin says its forces target only military assets and claims other damage is caused by debris from Ukrainian air defense weapons.
Meanwhile, an overnight attack on the town of Kruhliakivka, in the northeastern Kharkiv region, killed three people and injured nine others, Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said.
Russia also dropped four guided bombs on a village near Kupiansk, in the Kharkiv region, killing two civilians, Ukraine’s presidential office said.
Rescuers later came under fire and two of them were wounded, it said.
© Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
20 Comments
Fighto!
Targeting civilians, rescue workers, women and children? Straight from the Russian playbook. Their rampage of rape, violence and murder through defeated Germany in WW2 is well documented.
Nothing has changed with the Russians.
UChosePoorly
These kinds of things just make the Ukrainians even more determined not to end up under the heel of the invaders.
Keep pounding, Ukraine!
Eastman
no UA "winning news" today from front?
no new "heroic acts" or terrorism against russian bridges or tankers?
sure nothing for days as there are none fits your narratives...so need turn eyes on russian barbaric acts...
as usual.
Blacklabel
Nope. Bad news for the “counter offensive”. Guess try again next spring after more weapons and another 100 billion?
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/08/08/politics/ukraine-counteroffensive-us-briefings/index.html
Strangerland
No! We MAGA know that Ukraine MUST surrender, and surrender now, rather than fighting for their freedom. How dare they.
Blacklabel
This person isn’t MAGA:
Eastman
Blacklabel
This may be reason why "slava Ukraine" positive news have dissapeared from main page these days,even this short notice is "hiding" out of main page soon to "be forgotten"...this is "magic" of mainstream "journalism".
Befehl ist befehl...
Heroi are not doing well at all.
There are few reasons.They have much less "wunderwaffen" received from USA/NATO states/say tanks and armoured carriers/.Few drone desperate attacks wont hurt russian bear much...just annoy him.
Their brainless "hoorah attack" tactics when many of UA soldiers are dying faraway from russian positions because of mines etc.
No motivation to die for Kiev junta crooks siphoning money from West in own pockets.
At other hand russian side is nothing hurry at all.
Have enough of sources,guns,high production of shells,rockets,anything needed.Plenty of cash for shopping abroad.
Russia is not isolated as portraited here.
While UA side going to dry completely/man power,guns,tactics,everything/ russian side is waiting and is not hurry at all while all Europe and especially east european NATO members became "demilitarized".
Wondering how somebody can even think abt "UA victory" over Russia at all?
Still no feeling at the west to stop this proxywar conflict and take seat around table and talk about PEACE?Still more UA guys have to die for profit of Mr.Austin companies?
Strangerland
Eastman has spoken, and we MAGA know that he speaks for our other Dear Leader Putin, so we must listen to what he says.
TaiwanIsNotChina
Russia is using the "double tap" method of attacks, common to all terrorist organizations.
Eastman
Ukrainian artillery and rocket attacks on the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) on Tuesday claimed the lives of three civilians and injured 11 more, among them a child, said the acting head of the Russian region Denis Pushilin.
The shelling also damaged 10 public buildings – including a school in Donetsk, a kindergarten in Makeevka and a factory in Shakhtyorsk – and 24 residences in Donetsk and Yasinovataya.
In total, the Joint Center for Control and Coordination (JCCC) in Donetsk registered 95 volleys with a total of 349 rounds. Among them were cluster munitions supplied to Kiev’s forces by the US last month.
Just to bring some balance here...
TaiwanIsNotChina
Why would we stop calling out warcrimes on any day?
stormcrow
The Russians have been targeting and killing women and children from the start, killing rescue workers would be like a bonus for those barbarians.
Eastman
Donetsk and other Donbass cities have been under constant Ukrainian attacks which have claimed numerous civilian lives since 2014, when the region broke away from Kiev after a Western-backed coup in the Ukrainian capital.
Renewed shelling comes amid news reports that the much-publicized Ukrainian counteroffensive against Russian forces has stalled and that Kiev’s Western backers were losing faith in its prospects.
EFD
Yet another war crime. The Russians would resort to barrel bombs as they did in Syria, but their incompetent Air Farce cannot sortie beyond its own air space.
Nothing says "bad guy" like targeting the rescue responders.
Eric Rudolf did that in his domestic terror spree in the US.
So by comparison, that would make the Midget of Moscow a terrorist.
Strangerland
In an attempt to take them back from the foreign invader Russia.
Any dead Russian in Ukraine is dead because they went to Ukraine; it's on them, they deserve it.
TaiwanIsNotChina
So just memory holing the whole Russian invasion thing? Why not claim the Donbas people developed and fielded Su-57s on their own? You could transform this whole thing into a civil war except Russia jumped the gun and annexed already so it is a little hard to claim that now.
Blacklabel
Ah the “double tap”.
the brand new narrative from the front page of cnn.com
RichardPearce
But when the Israeli regime does it, it's a method to prevent causing civilian casualties by 'knocking on the door'.
At least according to the backers of the Kyiv regime when it's another one of their pet, undemocratic 'democratically elected governments'
Strangerland
So, do you think the west should drop their support for Ukraine, because Israel? Or did I misunderstand your point, and if so, what was it?
La vie douce
"....but their incompetent Air Farce cannot sortie beyond its own air space."
Numerous videos of Russian KA 52 helicopters destroying Ukranian armor all along the frontline show this statement for the nonsense it is. Same as the nonsense ramble about Russians running out of missiles, having no navy or air force to speak of, or their army consisting of convict rabble fighting with shovels and museum tanks and ready to surrender / run back to Russia. Delusion and unwillingness to accept reality does not change the reality on the ground. UA counter offensive has proven ineffective. Time to seriously start thinking about ceasefire negotiations to prevent more loss of life.