Russian attacks kill eight civilians, injure 11 more in Donetsk Oblast over past 24 hours

Russian Armed Forces claimed the lives of five people in the Donetsk Oblast on September 7, three in the city of Kostiantynivka and one each in the settlements of Petrivka and Shcherbynivka.

According to the Donetsk Oblast Military Administration, another 11 people have been injured in Donetsk Oblast over the past 24 hours.

Four people were injured in Kostiantynivka, the same number in Hirnyk, two more in Katerynivka, and one in Nova Poltavka.

Donbas News reported that the Russians struck the Zoria hotel with aerial bombs in the city of Mykolayivka.

Destroyed hotel in the city of Mykolayivka, the Donetsk region

The bodies of two men were recovered from the rubble of a hotel. Radio Liberty reported that veterinary volunteers from Kharkiv, aged 33 and 42, were staying at the hotel and had come to sterilise and vaccinate animals free of charge.

The Donetsk Oblast Prosecutor’s Office confirmed two deaths and reported that Russia launched the attack using guided aircraft bombs equipped with the UMPK, a combined gliding and navigation module.

Moreover, the Russian military killed three women and injured two men in Cherkaske in the Donetsk Oblast on the morning of September 8, 2024, according to the Donetsk Oblast Prosecutor’s Office. 

According to the investigation, at 10:30 am, the Russian troops deployed a multiple rocket launcher system to attack the village of Cherkaske, the Kramatorsk district. Two local women aged 43 and 53 were killed as a result of cluster munitions hitting their gardens.

Another woman, 45, sustained fatal injuries inside her house.

Additionally, a 48-year-old man, the husband of one of the deceased women, sustained shrapnel wounds and a craniocerebral injury. The wounded were taken to hospital. The wounded were taken to hospital.

To provide background, on September 5, 2024, Russian forces struck the town of Kostiantynivka in the Donetsk Oblast, leaving a 74-year-old man dead and six other civilians with injuries of varying severity.

The Donetsk Oblast Prosecutor’s Office reported that a 74-year-old resident has been killed in a shell strike on the territory of his household. Four men, aged 25 to 52, were also injured near one of the local shops. They received medical assistance for shrapnel wounds, mine-blast injuries, and a fracture.

The prosecutor’s office notes that Russian forces attacked the town several times with tubed artillery and also conducted an airstrike, likely using KAB-500 guided aerial bombs. The attacks resulted in civilian casualties and damage to building facades, the premises of a commercial facility, cars, and power lines.

Since the onset of the full-scale invasion, the death toll in the Donetsk Oblast, excluding Mariupol and Volnovakha, has reached 2,739.

The UN pointed out that a large-scale coordinated attack launched by the Russian Armed Forces across Ukraine on July 8, 2024, killed at least 43 civilians, including 5 children, and injured 147, including 7 children, in Kyiv City, Dnipro City, Kryvyi Rih (Dnipropetrovsk region) and Kyiv region.

One missile in the 8 July attack also struck a hospital complex in Kyiv city, destroying the toxicology department of the Okhmatdyt National Children’s Hospital and significantly damaging the Center for Pediatric Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery.

In June and July, the most intensive offensive military operations by the Russian Armed Forces shifted from the northern Kharkiv region to the Donetsk region, the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine noted. As a result, verified civilian casualties in the Donetsk region increased from 125 civilians killed or injured in May to 224 in June and 269 in July 2024.

The vast majority of civilian casualties (90%) and damage to educational and health facilities (86%) continued to occur in Government-controlled territory.

As for now, it is impossible to determine the exact number of all casualties, as Ukrainian law enforcement agencies and the representatives of the ICC have no access to the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.