A Russian missile attack on an apartment building in the eastern city of Slovyansk today killed at least eight people and injured 21 others. Ukrainianthe local governor said.

According to the latest count, “eight people died and 21 were injured,” Pavel Kirilenko said on Ukrainian television.

“At 18:00 local time, we had five dead and 15 wounded,” the governor of the Donetsk region initially said on Telegram, warning that “seven people, including a child, could be under the rubble.”

Shortly thereafter, an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky, Darya Zarivna, reported that a two-year-old child who had been pulled from the rubble later died in an ambulance, raising the death toll to six.

The city of Slovyansk is located in the Ukrainian-controlled part of Donetsk Oblast, 45 kilometers northwest of Bakhmut, close to Russian-controlled territory.

President Zelensky accused Russia of “barbaric bombing” of residential buildings and “killing people day and night.”

The Donetsk Regional Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement that a preliminary investigation has been initiated as part of a criminal case on violation of the laws and customs of war.

“According to preliminary information, the occupying forces used the S-300 anti-aircraft missile system against the civilian population,” the report says.

AFP journalists who arrived at the scene saw rescuers looking for survivors on the top floor of a Soviet-built apartment building, while puffs of black smoke rose from burning houses across the street.

“I live across the street and was sleeping when I heard this huge explosion. My apartment is over,” said Larisa, a 59-year-old resident. The woman explained that as a result of the explosion, windows were broken in her apartment and the whole house was covered with broken glass.

In another bombed-out area, in a residential area, an elderly woman, very agitated, was collecting scrap metal outside a shop.

^{Source: APE-MEB, Reuters, AFP.}