Ukraine has hit an apartment building Lugansk with US-supplied missiles — killing three civilians and injuring at least 35 more.
"At 11:00 Moscow time (8 am GMT) today, the Kiev regime committed a crime against the civilian population of the Lugansk People's Republic (LPR) using weapons supplied by the West," a Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) statement said. "Five US-made ATACMS missiles were deliberately launched at residential areas of the city of Lugansk."
The MoD noted that four of the American missiles were downed by Russian air defense systems. One missile struck two apartment buildings, the statement added.
An entire entranceway of the building collapsed, trapping people under the rubble, Head of the Lugansk People's Republic (LPR) Leonid Pasechnik said, adding that rescue teams working on-site.
Earlier, LPR Health Minister Natalia Pashchenko reported that the number of people injured in the missile attack on Lugansk by the Ukrainian Armed Forces had risen to 35, including three children, with five individuals in critical condition.
"According to the latest data, the number of casualties from the Ukrainian Armed Forces' shelling of the republic's capital has risen to 35 people. Three of them are children (boys aged 16, 15, and 8 years)" stated the minister in a message published on the LPR government's Telegram channel.
She reported that five individuals are in a critical condition, but the children's lives are not in danger — their injuries are considered moderate. At least three people were killed.
Ivan Kusov, the LPR Minister of Education and Science, reported that two schools, three kindergartens, a college and one of the buildings of Dalevsky University were damaged in the shelling by the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
He noted that the blast wave shattered windows at educational institutions. There were no casualties or injuries among the staff and students.