Russia’s missiles pummel more Donetsk cities as leaders implore people to leave(photos)

 

Russia is bringing its war against Ukraine closer to the industrial cities of Donetsk with a series of missile strikes against densely populated areas.

On Thursday, two S-300 missiles were fired at the center of the city of Kramatorsk, landing about a minute apart and less than a hundred meters from a CNN team.

An earlier Iskander missile strike had killed four people and hospitalized several more in the same area – an entirely residential zone with shops, a hospital and a clinic. One of those killed was a well-respected school principal, Hanna Valeriivna, weeks before her 48th birthday.

Rescue crews still at the scene had no warning of Thursday’s attack. CNN witnessed the second missile’s last moments in flight before a large fire erupted and smoke billowed into the air.

There were no further fatalities, though at least five civilians were injured. Some people ran in panic from the scene; others seemed fatalistic. “Of course, we are frightened,” said Natalia, a middle-aged woman cowering in a doorway. “But what option do we have?”

The military governor in Donetsk, Pavlo Kyrylenko, says there is one option: Leave. “The occupiers will not leave Donetsk region alone until we drive them out of our land. Until then, all civilians must evacuate the region – it is a matter of life and death.”

 

But his appeal sounds to some like a broken record. Many Ukrainians in the Donetsk region can’t afford to leave their homes, or fear being abandoned in a far-off place away from their familiar community. Ukrainian officials estimate that about half of Kramatorsk’s pre-war population of nearly 150,000 have left; tens of thousands remain in this industrial city, a center for mechanical engineering and steel-making.

The Kramatorsk strikes follow another against the nearby city of Konstantinyvka at the weekend, in which three people were killed. Russian forces trying to encircle the city of Bakhmut a few miles to the east may now be seeking to “soften up” the bigger cities nearby.

Throughout this campaign, Russian forces have combined attacks against Ukrainian forces and infrastructure with seemingly random strikes on urban areas.

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This may be in part because many of their missiles are not accurate. The Kh-22 – designed to sink aircraft carriers – killed dozens of people in strikes in Dnipro last month and the city of Kremenchuk last August. The S-300, designed to take down combat aircraft, has been crudely repurposed to hit ground targets.

But it may also be because part of the Russian strategy in this invasion has been to try to sap the morale of ordinary Ukrainians. Kramatorsk’s mayor alluded to that Thursday, saying: “When you see the ruins of the central building in the heart of your city, you lose heart. But now there is no time for that – they are trying to destroy us.”

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