Worthy Christian News > World News > Russian Missile Strikes Hit Ukrainian Town, But Moscow Blames Kyiv

Russian Missile Strikes Hit Ukrainian Town, But Moscow Blames Kyiv

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News

POKROVSK, UKRAINE (Worthy News) – Rescue efforts continued in an eastern Ukrainian town on Tuesday as the confirmed death toll following a Russian missile strike rose to seven.

Two missiles hit Pokrovsk – the second as rescuers were searching for the victims of the first. Dozens of people were injured, including police officers and rescuers, officials said.

Two children were reportedly among more than 30 civilians who were hurt.

Pavlo Krylenko, the head of the Donetsk region, said the first strike killed five civilians and added that an official from the emergency services was killed in the second strike. A person who works in the military also passed away, he added.

The buildings which were “destroyed and damaged” were “high-rise buildings, private houses, administrative buildings, catering establishments [and] a hotel,” Krylenko stressed.

Pokrovsk lies about 70 kilometers (43 miles) northwest of Donetsk city, occupied by Russian forces. Before the war, it had a population of around 60,000 people.

Moscow has denied targeting civilian sites and, following the missile strike, blamed Ukraine for a spate of arson attacks on military recruitment centers inside Russia.

STRANGE CALLERS

Russia alleged that callers with links to Ukraine’s intelligence services are “tricking” elderly Russians into committing such crimes.

The prosecutor general’s office says Ukrainian agents posed as police or creditors in the calls and incited Russians to attack the centers in return for promises to settle debts.

Additionally, Russians were allegedly promised the recovery of their stolen savings if they would participate in burning the facilities.

In one of the most recent incidents on July 29 in Severodvinsk, in Russia’s Arctic north, a 76-year-old pensioner tried to set an army recruitment center ablaze, but his Molotov cocktail hit the wall without igniting, authorities said.

On the same day in Kazan, a Volga River city east of Moscow, a retired doctor allegedly paid a large sum to a conman who posed as a Federal Security Service (FSB) officer. The conman then told her to burn a recruitment center, threatening to kill her daughter if she failed to do so, Russian sources claim. A

In Feodosia, in Russian-occupied Crimea, a school teacher aged 51 was detained on July 30 after a Molotov cocktail had been thrown at a recruitment center. She reportedly said a contact on the Telegram messaging service had instructed her.

On 31 July in Podolsk, a city just south of Moscow, a recruitment center was twice targeted by arsonists: first by a 76-year-old man and his son, aged 50, who had allegedly been scammed by fraudsters in a phone call, then by a 22-year-old catering manager who had also been targeted by phone scammers allegedly offering to return stolen money.

ATTACKING RUSSIA

The reported Ukrainian operations inside Russia come as Kyiv tries to bring the war closer to the Kremlin’s doorsteps as its counteroffensive against invading Russian forces faces more obstacles than anticipated.

This summer, Ukraine – with the help of billions of dollars of Western military equipment – went on the attack, attempting to expel Russian troops from land they previously captured in the east and south of the country.

But two months into the counter-offensive, Russia still occupies nearly one-fifth of Ukraine – including the cities of Donetsk in the east, and Mariupol, which it captured after months of siege – and its forces are well dug in.

Additionally, last week Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into law a measure that raises the maximum age for mandatory one-year military service for men to 30 from 27.

That law alone could expand the potential pool of conscripts by about 2 million men, experts suggest. Lawmakers approved the bill last month, calling the legislation a plan for “a big war” and “general mobilization.”

Under the legislation, Russian men between 18 and 30 years of age will be required to put in one year of mandatory military service as of January 1, 2024.

Initially, the changes were also supposed to raise the minimum age as well, but that plan was dropped.

The planned expansion of military conscripts and ongoing clashes suggested that the Ukraine war is far from over, with peace talks in Saudi Arabia over the weekend offering little results so far.