Russian missiles pound east Ukraine city

SLOVIANSK, Ukraine: Russian missiles punched through buildings in the eastern Ukrainian town of Sloviansk on Monday, killing two people in their cars and wounding more than 30, police said.

A blood-stained cap lay at the side of the street on Monday afternoon, next to a parked car whose front seat was covered with blood and shattered glass. Dmytro Nogin, a senior officer from Kramatorsk district police, told journalists that “at around 10:30 there was a missile attack on the city”.

“Two people have already died,” he said. “It was people driving by, chance victims.” Police said 32 were wounded, five very seriously, after two Russian-made S-300 missiles hit the street close to the centre.

Mayor Vadym Lyakh said separately that 36 people received injuries. Sloviansk is around 40-km as the crow flies from the frontline hotspot of Bakhmut, where a bloody battle has been running for months. It was briefly captured by Moscow-backed separatists in 2014.

A large three-storey administrative building had a huge hole in its facade and windows blown out. Nogin told AFP it was a railway office where people were undergoing a medical assessment, but two people at the scene called it a military enlistment centre.

AFP journalists saw a flak jacket being removed from the rubble. Oleksandr, 34, who was standing outside with his face bandaged, told AFP that he had come for a medical assessment at a “military enlistment centre”.

Outside, several cars were completely burnt out and a digger truck lifted a huge chunk of masonry from one. Those who died were simply driving past, police said. “A woman from that car died,” Nogin pointed to a burnt-out vehicle. “Another died from that green car.”