KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — At least 10 people, including children, died after shelling late on Friday struck a Russian-occupied town in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region, a local Kremlin-installed official said, blaming Ukraine for the attack.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials reported at least three civilian deaths elsewhere in the country that they said resulted from Russian attacks.
Russian emergency services on Saturday were working in the rubble in hopes of saving civilians trapped underneath the debris of their homes in Tokmak, in a part of southern Ukraine that Moscow has illegally annexed from Kyiv, according to the Kremlin-installed regional head Yevhen Balitsky.
The Tokmak municipal administration reported on Telegram that the shelling struck three apartment blocks on Friday evening. Five people were pulled alive from the rubble, Balitsky said, and a total of 13 people were hospitalized.
As of early afternoon on Saturday, Ukraine had not commented on the allegations.
Elsewhere in Ukraine, at least two civilians died as a result of Russian shelling on Friday and overnight, according to officials. Both deaths occurred in the front-line Donetsk region in the east, according to Telegram posts by local Gov. Vadym Filashkin.
On Saturday, Russian forces also shelled a car making food deliveries in the northern Chernihiv region, killing its civilian driver, regional Gov. Vyacheslav Chaus said.
In the Kharkiv region in the northeast, overnight Russian shelling left a man trapped under rubble and also wounded a second man, according to local Gov. Oleh Syniehubov and Ukrainian emergency services. Both have been hospitalized, according to a Telegram update by the state emergency service.
Local Ukrainian officials reported over a dozen civilians were wounded by Russian shelling on Friday and overnight in the country’s north, south and east.
It was not immediately possible to verify the claims by Balitsky or the Ukrainian authorities.