School House Attack Leaves 60 Dead in Ukraine

While domestic events have pried eyes away from Ukraine over recent days, events abroad are as dire and bloody than before.

At least 60 people are feared dead after a Russian airstrike on a school where people were sheltering in the village of Bilohorivka in eastern Ukraine, the regional governor of Luhansk said Sunday.

Fires raged at the school after the strike Saturday afternoon, Serhiy Haidai said in a post on his Telegram channel. He said two people had been confirmed dead. Seven of the 30 people who were evacuated were injured, he added.

“Most likely, all 60 people who remained under the rubble of buildings died,” Haidai said.

Haidai spoke ahead of a scheduled video call between the leaders of the world’s biggest economies and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a show of unity the day before Russia marks its Victory Day holiday Monday to honor the Soviet triumph over Nazi Germany in 1945.

The Group of Seven countries are meeting after Zelenskyy warned in a late-night video address that Russian forces were likely to intensify their attacks leading into Monday. His comments came after the key Black Sea port of Odesa was hit with cruise missiles and as the bombardment of the Azovstal steel plant up the coast in Mariupol continued.

The most intense fighting in recent days has been in eastern Ukraine, where the two sides are entrenched in a fierce battle to capture or reclaim territory.

Moscow’s offensive there has focused on the Donbas, where Russia-backed separatists have been fighting since 2014.

Getting a full picture of the unfolding battle in the east has been difficult because airstrikes and artillery barrages have made it extremely dangerous for reporters to move around.

And both Ukraine and the Moscow-backed rebels fighting in the east have introduced tight restrictions on reporting from the combat zone.

Russia’s 10-week-old war on Ukraine has killed thousands, destroyed cities, and driven five million Ukrainians to flee the country.

The besieged port city of Mariupol, a strategic target for Russian forces, has been virtually annihilated with the last 300 civilians trapped in the bombed-out Azovstal steelworks evacuated on Saturday.

Evacuation efforts on Sunday will now focus on getting the wounded and medics out of the steel plant.

Ukrainian fighters in the factory have vowed not to surrender and Russian forces are seeking to declare a victory in the prolonged battle for the vast plant in time for Monday’s Victory Day celebrations in Moscow, which commemorate the Soviet Union’s triumph over Nazi Germany in World War II.

The Soviet-era Azovstal steel mill, the last holdout for Ukrainian forces in the port city, has become a symbol of resistance to the Russian effort to capture swaths of eastern and southern Ukraine.