Russian missile kills five in east Ukraine town

A Russian missile attack Tuesday on the Ukrainian city of Izyum, briefly occupied by Russia in 2022, killed five people and wounded three dozen more, officials said.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said after the attack that it was “impossible to reconcile with this cruelty” and urged allies to pile pressure on Moscow to end its invasion.

Oleg Synegubov, governor of the wider Kharkiv region that lies next to the Russian border, said 38 people had been wounded in the Russian strike, including a 15-year-old girl.

He said rescue workers had pulled a body from rubble after the ballistic missile strike, increasing an inital death toll of four to five.

Zelensky said the city council building had been damaged in the attack while Synegubov earlier said a five-storey residential building was hit.

“We need to put pressure on Russia, use as much force as possible — the force of arms, the force of sanctions, the force of diplomacy — to stop the terror and protect lives,” Zelensky wrote on social media.

Izyum, which had a population of around 45,000 people before the Russian invasion launched in February 2022, was occupied for several months at the beginning of the war before being retaken by Ukrainian forces later that year.

Russian forces are making gains in the region and undoing the advances Kyiv’s army made in their 2022 counteroffensive, while stepping up bombardments.

The town lies some 40 kilometres (25 miles) from the front line.