Kramatorsk, Ukraine
CNN
—
A new barrage of rockets swept through the eastern Ukraine city of Kramatorsk on Thursday, sending flames and thick plumes into the sky as screaming civilians rushed for shelter.
A CNN team had just arrived and heard the first incoming attack on Kramatorsk. CNN saw the second strike, with two strikes about a minute apart. Two women jumped out of their cars and ran screaming while other civilians took shelter wherever they could. Shrapnel bounced off the blast-resistant glass of a CNN vehicle.
Paramedics rushed to the scene to treat at least one injured civilian. Kramatorsk mayor Oleksandr Honcharenko also confirmed that there had been an attack on the city and urged residents to stay in bomb shelters.
Pavlo Kyrylenko, the head of the military administration of the Donetsk region, said at least five people were injured in Thursday’s attack.
“They damaged 13 two-story buildings, three four-story buildings, a children’s clinic and school, garages and cars,” Kyrylenko said. “Russians are confirming their status as terrorists every day,” he said.
“It was a huge blast, a lot of people were obviously running for cover,” CNN’s Frederik Pleitgen told Connect the World, adding that both attacks “hit right in the heart of a civilian city” on Thursday.
Ukrainian authorities believe Russian forces used S-300 missiles to bomb Kramatorsk. When aimed at ground targets, such weapons are “highly imprecise,” Pleitgen added.
“If that’s done to hit a densely populated urban area, it becomes all the more dangerous.”
Moscow’s renewed attack came after Russian forces attacked the residential area with an Iskander-K missile on Wednesday, killing at least three civilians and wounding another eight, according to local police. Two of the injured are in critical condition, Honcharenko said.
Rescue workers scoured rubble to try to locate survivors in the aftermath of Wednesday’s attack, which damaged eight apartment buildings. Authorities also evacuated people to a local school for shelter.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned the strike and expressed his condolences to the families and friends of the victims.
“This is not a repetition of history; this is the daily reality of our country,” he said on Telegram.
“A country bordering on absolute evil. And a country that must overcome to reduce the chance of such tragedies happening again. We will certainly find and punish all perpetrators. They deserve no mercy.”
Moscow’s attack in Kramatorsk came after a top Kiev official said Russia is gearing up for a “maximum escalation” of Ukraine’s nearly years-long war.
“These will be defining months in the war,” Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, told Sky News in an interview broadcast on Tuesday.
“I am aware that the most important battles are yet to come and they will take place within two to three months this year,” he said.
“Russia is preparing for maximum escalation. It is collecting everything possible, doing exercises and training. When it comes to an offensive from different directions, from now on I can say that we are not ruling out any scenario in the next two to three weeks.”
