Sixty people are feared dead after a Russian airstrike destroyed a Ukrainian school in the eastern village of Bilohorivka, local officials said Sunday.
It’s the latest in a series of brutal attacks on targets in Ukraine’s Donbas region, which is now the epicenter of Russia’s military campaign. The school in Bilohorivka was sheltering about 90 people at the time of the strike, officials said.
The building reportedly caught fire after Russian bombs fell nearby. Thirty people were rescued from the wreckage.
“Most likely, all 60 people who remain under the rubble are now dead,” Serhiy Haidai, governor of the eastern Luhansk province, wrote in a message on Telegram.
He said that two boys, 11 and 14, were also killed in the attack.
Russian forces also are trying to push the final Ukrainian defenders out of the port city of Mariupol, which has been devastated after weeks of non-stop shelling. About 2,000 Ukrainian troops are holed up inside the sprawling Azovstal steel plant, which has become both a key logistical target for the Russian forces and a symbol of the Ukrainian resistance.
All women, children and older civilians who had been sheltering in the plant were evacuated Saturday, Ukrainian officials said.
With civilians now gone, the plant could see even more brutal attacks. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy acknowledged the dire situation facing the remaining Ukrainian troops.
“We are not losing hope, we are not stopping. Every day we are looking for some diplomatic option that might work,” he said over the weekend.
• This article is based in part on wire-service reports.