Moscow:

Russia said on Saturday that Ukrainian shelling of the occupied eastern city of Lischichansk killed at least 20 people and wounded at least 10 others and that rescue operations were still underway.

Moscow’s occupation forces said the attack in Kiev targeted a popular weekend bakery.

The attack comes nearly two years after Russia launched its offensive in Ukraine.

Lischichansk, a city in the Luhansk region with a population of about 110,000 before Moscow launched its offensive, fell to Russian forces in the summer of 2022 after a brutal battle.

The Russian Ministry of Emergency Rescue said on Telegram: “In Lischichansk, workers of the Russian Ministry of Emergency Rescue recovered 20 bodies from under the rubble.”

Video showed rescuers working in the dark pulling a body from the rubble before finding an injured woman still alive and placing her on a stretcher and taking her out of the badly damaged building.

The ministry said earlier that 10 survivors had been rescued from under the rubble and that rescue operations would continue into the night.

Leonid Pasechnik, the Moscow-appointed governor of Luhansk, said earlier that Kiev was targeting a bakery that serves fresh bread on weekends.

RIA Novosti released a video showing a severely damaged building and emergency workers pulling out a completely crushed car.

The one-story building, which had a large sign saying “Adriatic Restaurant”, looked completely destroyed and covered in rubble.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry claimed that Western weapons were used in the attack and said it expected “swift and unconditional condemnation” from international organizations.

There has been little movement on the front in eastern Ukraine for months, but fighting has remained bloody this winter with attacks from both sides intensifying.

The attack came as Kiev said a new Russian attack using Iranian-made drones targeted energy facilities in the central Dnepropetrovsk region, knocking out power to thousands of people.

Rescue is in progress

Moscow authorities said a man with “serious” injuries was taken to a hospital in the city of Lugansk.

Lischichansk is about 15 kilometers (9 miles) from Ukrainian-controlled territory.

Russia took control of the city and its sister city Severodonetsk in the summer of 2022 after some of the most brutal fighting of its nearly two-year offensive.

Meanwhile, Ukraine said its air force shot down nine of 14 Iranian-made drones launched by Russia over its central and southern regions on Saturday.

Kiev said most of the drones targeted energy installations in the central Dnipropetrovsk region, where thousands have been without power since Russia’s attack on Friday.

The blackout mainly affected the main city of Krivyrig, the hometown of President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Regional chief Sergey Lysak said 15,000 people in the city were without power after the drone strikes.

Ukraine’s energy ministry said it was working to restore critical infrastructure.

“Spectacular show”

Zelensky, meanwhile, praised Russian security services for striking Moscow’s forces off the battlefield “both on land and at sea.”

Two days ago, Ukraine said it destroyed a Russian warship near the Crimean peninsula; on the same day, Russia said a Ukrainian drone strike caused a fire at an oil refinery in southern Russia.

“Russia is indeed pained by your actions,” Zelensky said.

On Thursday, Kiev said it destroyed a Russian warship, the Ivanovits, in the Donuzlav Bay on the west coast of Crimea.

“It was a spectacular act,” Zelensky said of the alleged shootdown.

“The fewer Russian naval forces in the Black Sea, the greater the security of the region and the world,” he said.

Moscow earlier said a Ukrainian drone set fire to a large oil refinery in Russia’s southwestern Volgograd region.

A Ukrainian Defense Ministry source told AFP that Kiev’s SBU security service “organized” the attack.

“Last night, air defense and electronic interference repelled a drone attack in the Kalachovsky and Zakanaye districts of the Volgograd region,” Volgograd Governor Andrei Bocharov said on Telegram.

“A fire broke out at the Volgograd refinery after a downed drone fell,” he said, adding that the fire department had brought the fire under control in the early morning.

Bocharov said no one was injured.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)