Ukraine war: Eight dead in Russian attack on Liman, authorities say

Ukrainian authorities said at least eight people were killed in an attack on a residential area in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.

The Ukrainian Interior Ministry said that 13 other people were wounded in the Russian bombing of the town of Liman.

The ministry said the raid caused fires in a house, a printing press and three vehicles, which were put out by rescuers.

This comes as the country celebrates the fifteenth day of the invasion.

The Ukrainian counteroffensive, which began last month, continues in eastern Donetsk and southeastern Zaporizhia regions.

Its progress has been slow, as Russia continues its missile and drone attacks.

The spokesman for the Eastern Ukrainian Forces Group, Serhiy Chervaty, told Ukrainian television on Friday that Russia was “concentrating very strong forces” there.

“Around 10:00, the Russians bombed the city with multiple rocket launchers,” the governor of the Donetsk region, Pavlo Kirilenko, said on social media on Saturday. He said that a house and a shop were affected.

The BBC has not been able to verify these allegations.

10 people, including a 95-year-old woman, were killed Thursday after a Russian missile hit an apartment building in Lviv, western Ukraine.

Another 40 people were wounded in what the mayor of Lviv described as “one of the largest attacks” on the city’s civilian infrastructure.

The previous week, 13 people – including children – were killed when a restaurant and shopping center were bombed in Kramatorsk, an eastern city near Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine.

For months, Russia has been carrying out deadly missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian cities, usually hitting civilian targets and causing widespread blackouts.

“I want to thank from here, from this place of victory, each of our soldiers for these 500 days,” Mr. Zelensky said.

And earlier this week, the US military officer, Gen. Mark Milley, said that although Ukraine is advancing steadily, its counteroffensive against Russia will be difficult and “extremely bloody”.

The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces carried out offensive operations south and north of what remained of the eastern city of Bakhmut—most of it under Russian control.

Last week, the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s military said his campaign had been bogged down by a lack of sufficient firepower and expressed frustration with the slow delivery of weapons promised by the West.

The US faced criticism for its decision, but Mr. Zelensky thanked the US for the “timely, ample and much-needed” assistance.