The head of a school in eastern Ukraine on Monday rejected Russia’s allegations that it killed hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers in a missile strike there, saying damage was only to windows and classrooms.
Russia specifically named Kramatorsk vocational school the target of an attack on Saturday, in which the rockets reportedly hit two temporary bases housing 1,300 Ukrainian soldiers in the city, leaving 600 dead.
Associated Press reporters who visited the site saw a four-story building with most of its windows blown out, but there were no signs of a Ukrainian military presence or casualties.
Inside, workers were clearing debris, sweeping broken glass and throwing broken furniture into a crater created by rockets exploding in the street.
Yana Pristupa, deputy director of the school, disputed Moscow’s claims that it attacked and hit a base and a concentration of Ukrainian troops there.
‘No one has seen a bloodstain anywhere’he assured in his statements to the AP, further explaining that before the war, the school had more than 300 students, but most classes began to be “online” because of the Russian attacks.
Ukrainian authorities on Sunday denied Russian allegations that Kiev had lost a large number of soldiers in the attack.
Russia’s defense ministry claimed to have killed more than 600 Ukrainian soldiers on Saturday in a “retaliatory operation” for the New Year’s attack on Russian troops in Makiivka, eastern Ukraine, which left 89 soldiers dead.
The attack on Makiivka, in the disputed region of Donetsk, is regarded as one of the biggest setbacks for Russian forces since the invasion of Ukraine began. casualties are much larger, talking about hundreds.
During the war, both sides regularly claimed to have killed hundreds of each other’s soldiers in attacks. Allegations can rarely be independently verified because of the fighting.
The Russian military offensive in Ukraine began almost a year ago and the UN has confirmed that 6,919 civilians have been killed and 11,075 injured since the start of the war, underlining that this number is well below the actual figures.
The attacks also caused the displacement, inside and outside Ukraine, of more than 14 million people, in a refugee crisis the UN classifies as the worst in Europe since World War II (1939-1945).
Currently, 17.7 million Ukrainians need humanitarian aid and 9.3 million need food aid and shelter.
The Russian invasion was condemned by the international community at large, which responded by sending arms, economic and humanitarian aid to Ukraine and imposing unprecedented political and economic sanctions on Moscow.
Source: DN
