Kyiv, Ukraine – Two foreign aid workers were reportedly killed in eastern Ukraine on Sunday when Russian shelling hit a van carrying a team of four working with a Ukrainian NGO, while dozens of Russian drones targeted Kiev, injuring at least one civilian.
The four volunteers from the Road to Relief group, which helps evacuate wounded people from frontline areas, were trapped inside the van when it overturned and caught fire after being hit by shells near the town of Chasiv Yar, the organization said. Instagram page.
Road to Relief said Anthony Ihnat of Canada died in the attack, while German medical volunteer Ruben Mawick and Swedish volunteer Johan Mathias Thyr were seriously injured.
Road to Relief added that the whereabouts of the van’s fourth passenger, Emma Igual, a Spanish national who was the organization’s director, could not be traced. Hours later, Spain’s Acting Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares told Spanish media that authorities in Madrid had received “verbal confirmation” of the death of 32-year-old Igual.
The volunteers were on their way to assess the needs of civilians on the outskirts of Bakhmut, Road to Relief said, referring to the eastern city that saw the longest and bloodiest fighting of the war before it fell to Moscow in May. Ukrainian forces have held on to Bakhmut’s western suburbs and are launching a counter-offensive in the area.
Also on Sunday, Ukrainian officials reported that Russia launched “dozens” of drones at Kiev and the surrounding region early in the morning, injuring at least five civilians.
Ukraine’s air force later said it had shot down 26 of a total of 33 drones. The head of Kiev’s military administration, Serhii Popko, reported that debris from Iranian-made Shahed drones fell in several districts of the city, injuring at least one civilian. Popko said there was no risk to the person’s life, adding that most of the wreckage fell on open ground, although a high-rise apartment was damaged.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko later confirmed that a civilian was injured in the city’s historic center and was being treated at the scene.
The governor of Kiev region, which surrounds but does not include the capital, also reported that the drone strike injured four people across the province, one of whom had to be hospitalized. In a Facebook post, Governor Ruslan Kravchenko said the drones damaged an infrastructure facility as well as civilian buildings including homes and shops, a hospital, a rehabilitation center, a school and a kindergarten.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said early Sunday that Moscow’s forces had earlier destroyed three US-supplied motorboats carrying Ukrainian soldiers that had been traveling towards Russian-occupied Crimea. The claim could not be independently verified. Earlier on Sunday, the ministry said in a separate statement that Russian air defenses shot down eight Ukrainian drones targeting Crimea, as well as another flying over the Bryansk region bordering Ukraine.
On August 24, Ukrainian military intelligence said its special forces landed in Crimea, which Moscow illegally seized from Ukraine in 2014, and raised the Ukrainian flag along the peninsula’s western coast before leaving “without casualties.”
Ukrainian army officials on Sunday reported further small gains near Robotyne in the southern Zaporizhzhia region, where Kiev has launched a counteroffensive, days after Russian-installed authorities acknowledged that Russian forces had left the village.
Oleksandr Shtupun, a press officer for Ukraine’s Tauride Defense Forces, said on Ukrainian TV that Kiev troops had retaken another 1.5 square kilometers (0.6 square miles) near Rabotyne, and that heavy fighting was ongoing.
“The Russians are clinging to every meter of our Ukrainian land … but the Ukrainian defense forces are trying to make it as difficult as possible to supply the Russian army, and in some areas this is bearing fruit,” Shtupun said, without giving details.
Hours later, Ukraine’s General Staff said in the latest of its Facebook updates that its forces had “partial success” near Robotyne as well as Klishchiivka, a village 9 kilometers (5.6 miles) southwest of Bakhmut, dislodging Russian troops from their positions. It did not provide further details and the claim could not be verified.
A Washington-based think tank assessed late Saturday, citing geolocated images, that Russian forces had captured territory between Robotyne and two nearby villages: Verbove, about 10 kilometers (6 miles) to the east, and Novoprokopivka, 5 kilometers (3 miles) to South.
The Institute for the Study of War also said in its latest daily updates that Ukrainian forces had advanced along the border between Zaporizhzhia region and Donetsk province further east, near the village of Novomaiorske. It acknowledged earlier Ukrainian claims of progress “south of Klischiivka”, but provided no evidence to support them.
Source: sn.dk