Ukrainian rescuers were expected on Monday to find survivors under the rubble of an apartment building hit by a Russian missile attack that killed at least 15 people, while Moscow forces are trying to consolidate their control over the Donbas region.
The building was partially destroyed by the strike. Dozens of lifeguards have been sifting through the rubble with a mechanical excavator.
15 bodies were found and five people were extracted alive from the rubble in the town of Chasiv Yar, the local emergency service said.
At least 30 more are under the rubble of the four-story building after it was hit by a Russian hurricane missile, Donetsk regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said.
Rescuers have been able to make contact with three people under the rubble, emergency services said.
“All those who give orders for these strikes, all those who carry them out by going to our usual cities, residential areas, kill absolutely deliberately,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly speech, promising that the perpetrators will be brought to justice.