Russia-Ukraine updates: Russian missiles hit close to nuclear reactors: IAEA director

Shelling is ongoing near the largest nuclear power plant in Europe.

Last Updated: August 24, 2023, 10:20 AM EDT

Russian President Vladimir Putin's "special military operation" into neighboring Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with Russian forces invading from Belarus, to the north, and Russia, to the east. Ukrainian troops have offered "stiff resistance," according to U.S. officials.

The Russian military has since launched a full-scale ground offensive in eastern Ukraine's disputed Donbas region, capturing the strategic port city of Mariupol and securing a coastal corridor to the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula.

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Jul 11, 2022, 8:26 AM EDT

Russia strikes Kharkiv, Mykolaiv and Odesa, hitting residential areas

Russian strikes targeted several Ukrainian cities, including Kharkiv, Mykolaiv and Odesa, on Sunday night and Monday morning.

A strike in Kharkiv on Sunday night hit a residential building downtown, a school and a warehouse. The emergency service said it rescued a woman from beneath the debris.

Rescue workers put out the fire of a destroyed car after a Russian attack in a residential neighborhood in downtown Kharkiv, Ukraine, on July 11, 2022
Evgeniy Maloletka/AP Photo

Another attack that hit the city late in the morning left at least three people dead and 31 wounded, including two children, officials said.

At least six missiles hit Mykolaiv on Monday morning, local authorities said, injuring three people.

A missile strike also targeted Odesa on Monday morning, local officials said. Russian jets in Crimea fired four missiles at the city, with one missile striking a residential building. The number of casualties was unknown.

-ABC News' Edward Szekeres, Yulia Drozd, Fidel Pavlenko and Max Uzol

Jul 10, 2022, 6:26 PM EDT

12 HIMARS 'not enough,' 112 would be 'better': Zelenskyy adviser

It is vital that Ukraine retakes territory in the south of the country before winter sets in, according to an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Serhiy Leshchenko told ABC News that any military offensive would be much harder during the winter.

The Ukrainian government fears that Russia could use a deadlock during the winter to consolidate its control over newly occupied territories in the Kherson and Zhaporizhia regions, he said, and it's therefore crucial for Ukraine to counterattack effectively during the coming months.

"Our concern is that if winter comes, under Russian occupation of these territories, Russia will use this three, four months of the winter for fast integration of these territories into Russia," Leshchenko said, "and that is why it is very important to have counterattack in the south before winter starts to take them out from this territory before winter starts."

The presidential adviser also renewed calls for the United States to provide more High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems or HIMARS.

On Friday, the Biden Administration announced it would provide four more HIMARS to Ukraine on top of the eight that had already been delivered.

Leshchenko said Ukraine was grateful for the 12 HIMARS but that it was nowhere near enough.

"You provided good weapons, but... it's not enough," he said. "Twelve HIMARS is better than nothing, but it’s better that we have not 12, but 112."

"It would change the situation on the front line dramatically and very fast," he added.

-ABC News' Tom Burridge

Jul 10, 2022, 5:24 PM EDT

6 survivors pulled from rubble of Donetsk apartment building hit by Russian missiles

At least six survivors have been rescued Sunday from the rubble of three apartment buildings purportedly hit by Russian missiles in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, but emergency officials said at least 24 people, including a 9-year-old child, remain unaccounted for and are feared buried under the debris.

At least 15 people were killed when four Russian rockets slammed into the residential buildings Saturday evening in the town of Chasiv Yar, according to Viacheslav Boitsov, deputy chief of emergency service in the Donetsk region.

A man is recovered from the rubble of a destroyed apartment building in the town of Chasiv Yar in the Donetsk region of Ukraine, July 10, 2022.
AP

"They were likely Iskander missiles. A part of a building collapsed, from the fifth to the first floor. There are likely injured people still (under the rubble)," Boitsov told The Associated Press.

Pavlo Kyrylenko, governor of the Donetsk region that includes Chasiv Yar, told The AP that as many as 24 people were believed still trapped in the rubble, including a 9-year-old child.

Russian officials claimed its forces struck Ukrainian army hangars storing U.S.-produced M777 howitzers, a type of artillery, near Kostyantynivka in Donetsk region, but, so far, it has not claimed responsibility for the missile strike on the residential building in Chasiv Yar.

The latest rescue came late Sunday when emergency workers rescued a man after a lengthy operation to free him from under the concrete. Video showed a rescue team carrying the man out of the ruins on a stretcher. He was whisked away to a hospital. It was not immediately clear how severely injured he was.

Emergency Services officials said the latest rescue brought to six the number of survivors dug out of the rubble.

Cranes and excavators worked alongside rescue teams into the night to clear away the ruins of one building, its walls wholly shorn off by the impact of the strike.

Jul 10, 2022, 11:41 AM EDT

15 killed in Russian missile strike on residential building in Donetsk region

At least 15 people were killed and two dozen more are feared trapped in rubble after Russian Uragan rockets slammed into a five-story apartment building in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk region, local officials said on Sunday.

Search-and-rescue workers were combing through the rubble for survivors on Sunday.

The missile strike came as Ukrainian officials reported clashes with Russian troops on the frontline in the eastern and southern Ukraine.

Donetsk Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said the strike on the apartment building occurred Saturday evening in the town of Chasiv Yar. The regional emergency service said Sunday that the death toll had climbed to 15 and that 24 more people could still be buried under the rubble.

Iryna Shulimova, 59, weeps at the scene in the aftermath of a Russian rocket that hit an apartment residential block, in Chasiv Yar, Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine, July 10, 2022.
Nariman El-mofty/AP

"We ran to the basement, there were three hits, the first somewhere in the kitchen," a local resident, who gave her name as Ludmila, told rescuers as they removed a body wrapped in a white sheet and cleared rubble using a crane as well as their hands. "The second (strike), I do not even remember, there was lightning, we ran towards the second entrance and then straight into the basement. We sat there all night until this morning."

Local residents remove the debris from their partially destroyed house after a Russian rocket explosion on the outskirts of Kharkiv, Ukraine, July 10, 2022.
Sergey Bobok/AFP via Getty Images

Andriy Yermak, chief of staff to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said in a Telegram post that the strike was "another terrorist attack" and that Russia should be designated as a state sponsor of terrorism as a result.

Russian officials claimed its forces struck Ukrainian army hangars storing U.S.-produced M777 howitzers, a type of artillery, near Kostyantynivka in Donetsk region, but, so far, has not claimed responsibility for the missile strike on the residential building in Chasiv Yar.

-ABC News' Christine Theodorou

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