Ukrainian city hit with Russian ‘double-tap’ missile strike
Transcript
00:00 Well, rescuers in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region are still looking for survivors after
00:06 a pair of Russian missile strikes. Now, these happened Monday night in Pokrovsk, killing
00:13 at least seven people and wounding more than 80. One of those dead, a first responder.
00:20 Ukrainian officials accuse Russia of so-called double-tap strikes, launching a second attack
00:26 to hit rescue teams who go to the scene of the first attack. Claire Sebastian is here
00:33 in London. Claire, what are the details as we understand?
00:37 Yeah, Becky, we understand that at least seven people were killed. The injury toll now up
00:42 to 81, of which almost half made up by police and rescuers. So that gives you a sense of
00:49 what happened here. Pokrovsk is a town in the Donetsk region, in the part of that region
00:55 that Ukraine still occupies, although Russia, of course, has claimed to annex that entire
01:00 region. So no stranger to fighting. This is a region that's seen fighting since 2014.
01:05 But this attack that happened at dusk in the evening, people having dinner, people in their
01:10 apartments still came as a shock. Take a look.
01:15 Even for a town that spent most of the last decade on the edge of conflict, these are
01:21 startling images. Daylight revealing a wide area of destruction in Pokrovsk as rescue
01:27 efforts resumed. The head of the town, some 30 miles from the Eastern Front, says two
01:32 Iskander ballistic missiles struck 37 minutes apart Monday evening.
01:38 This is a standard Russofascist scenario. 30 to 40 minutes between missiles. When the
01:43 state emergency service and rescuers arrive to save people, the second missile hits, and
01:48 so the number of victims increases.
01:50 Here is the moment of that second hit, captured on a paramedic's body camera.
02:04 Not surprising then that dozens of police officers and rescuers were among the injured,
02:09 as well as children. The deputy head of the state emergency service in the Donetsk region
02:14 killed.
02:18 Having witnessed the first strike, this 75-year-old woman fell victim to the second in her own
02:24 apartment.
02:25 There was a first impact. We were not hit. All was OK here. I was talking on the phone,
02:31 sitting, and then suddenly this flew out, and it fell around me. Then the window fell
02:35 on me. My back has cuts.
02:38 A hotel, now closed, an Italian restaurant once frequented by foreign journalists, also
02:43 hit. Russia has denied targeting civilian areas, saying Tuesday it hit a Ukrainian military
02:49 command post in Pokrovsk.
02:51 But nearly 18 months into this war, attacks like this are commonplace. And Ukraine says
02:56 Russia is not letting up on the front lines either. Footage released this weekend showing
03:01 Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu apparently visiting rear positions inside Ukraine.
03:07 Capping a week in which Ukraine says Russia fired almost half a million munitions in the
03:12 east.
03:15 This as Western officials tell CNN two months in, briefings on the state of Ukraine's counter
03:21 offensive are growing more and more pessimistic, as Ukrainian troops still face layers of Russian
03:26 defences in the south with mountain casualties.
03:30 One chink of light, the first batch of US Abrams battle tanks is now ready for shipment
03:35 and set to arrive by early fall.
03:38 Likely not soon enough to turn the tide in the counter offensive, but a boost for Ukrainian
03:43 morale, again under attack.
03:46 You know, Becky, these attacks on civilian areas, even though Russia consistently denies
03:53 them, have become a hallmark of this conflict. We saw Krivyi Rih at the end of July, Kramatorsk
03:58 at the end of June. The randomness of this designed to keep the psychological pressure
04:05 on Ukrainians to test their resolve, even as Russia is struggling to break through their
04:09 defences in some regions. And just one more thing, rescuers also have been in the firing
04:14 line throughout this conflict. We had a new number today from a spokesman for the state
04:18 emergency services that 78 rescuers have been killed, 280 injured, they say, since the start
04:25 of the full scale invasion.
04:26 Claire, just a little more, if you will, on these concerns about this Ukrainian counter
04:33 offensive, new CNN reporting revealing Ukraine's allies getting, and I quote here, "sobering
04:39 updates from the battleground." Can we be a little bit more specific?
04:44 Yeah, this is reporting that CNN has that Western and US officials are saying that,
04:50 frankly, they're getting a bit of a dose of reality that two months or so into this counter
04:56 offensive, we're really not seeing much movement. The fact that Russia had the time to build
05:01 up its defences, especially we see in the south, has meant that Ukraine has faced mounting
05:07 casualties. They're now in some areas having to pull back units in order to minimise those
05:13 casualties.
05:14 Look, in many ways, this wasn't unexpected. President Zelensky has been saying, look,
05:18 we were waiting, we wanted to start the counter offensive in the spring. We had to wait for
05:22 more weapons, for more ammunition until around early June when we felt comfortable enough
05:27 to start it.
05:28 So there are some questions around that as well, whether enough training was given to
05:31 the brigades who are operating some of the Western weapons systems, that balancing act
05:35 that we've been talking about, whether to go quicker or to wait for more training. Some
05:39 of that is coming into play now. But I suppose one small silver lining for the Ukrainians
05:44 is that at least this manages the expectations and they are still getting, we saw with the
05:49 Abrams tanks, they're still getting these Western weapons through.
05:52 Yeah. And CNN chief national security correspondent Jim Schueter has been speaking with many of
05:58 those US officials and will be live with Jim next hour. Thank you.