The early evening strike, which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said was launched from an S-300 missile system, is the latest amid a surge in Russian attacks on civilian infrastructure in Ukraine in the past 10 days. Other major attacks in recent days have struck Kiev, Kharkiv, Odessa and other Ukrainian cities, killing and wounding dozens of civilians.
“Russia should feel – always feels – that such a strike will not pass without consequences for the terrorist state,” Zelensky wrote on Telegram after the strike on Pokrovsk. We must ensure this with our strength, defense and political capabilities.”
Earlier Saturday, Ukraine announced that it had struck the Saki air base in the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula. Russia also accused Ukraine of carrying out strikes on the Russian border city of Belgorod, including an attack on December 30 that killed 25 people.
Immediately after the attack, the Russian Defense Ministry said that its air defenses intercepted several weapons, but that “several missiles and cluster fragments” from a downed missile hit the city.
Russia also announced that it had intercepted dozens of Ukrainian drones in recent days over Crimea, the peninsula that Russia illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
The White House announced on Thursday that Russia had begun launching ballistic missiles it received from North Korea at Ukraine.
Anxiety has risen in Kiev in recent months, as disagreements in Congress have stalled a much-needed US aid package, which has been linked to controversial border control policies. Lawmakers failed to reach any agreement before the winter recess. The nearly $60 billion package would have included major weapons, including munitions for air defense systems that help Ukraine shoot down Russian missiles and drones to avoid heavy civilian casualties.
Pokrovsk is located in the Donetsk region in the east of the country, parts of which are occupied by Russian forces. A Russian attack on the city in August killed nine people, injured dozens, and destroyed a residential building, a hotel, and a restaurant.
Russia “is trying to bring as much misery as possible to our land,” Vadim Velashkin, the region's governor, wrote in a telegram on Saturday.
Ukrainian human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lobinets wrote on X that the attacks amounted to evidence that Russian forces “continue to commit genocide against the Ukrainian people.”
“Their actions are exclusively aimed at killing the civilian population, especially innocent children,” he wrote.
