The shell left a gaping hole in the police station in Lysytchansk, Ukraine, a symbol of Russian artillery fire that smashed that city in the east of the country, where soldiers dug defensive positions on Tuesday.
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The police station was hit Monday night after Lysytchansk suffered heavy shelling that left at least one dead in this strategic industrial city across from Severodonetsk in the eastern Donbass region.
The governor of the Luhansk region, Sergiy Gaidai, said the city had been “very heavily shelled” throughout the day and had also been the target of airstrikes.
The police station, located on a side street leading to the river, suffered a “direct impact” in which 20 police officers were injured, special forces colonel Oleksandr Kutsepalenko told AFP.
The injured officers were taken to the city hospital, which has no electricity. According to the police, the intensive bombing of the city began early Monday afternoon and lasted into the night. The colonel states that there have been nine direct strikes in the area around the police station, leaving “54 craters” in the area.
As of Tuesday morning, the sound of multiple rocket fires was still echoing.
The police station was still open on Tuesday, one of the few public facilities in the devastated city. Residents come here to report deaths, seek help, contact loved ones, or simply use the restrooms.
“The walls fell down and the doors were blown out,” said a police officer, who identified himself by his nickname, Petrovich. Outside, three police cars burst into flames after shrapnel blew up a gas cylinder, he said.
Closer to the front, police set up a barricade of wrecked cars and vans to slow the advancing Russian forces.
A civilian building opposite the train station was also gutted, and a Russian missile lies in the yard. A woman on the second floor was “injured by shrapnel,” according to Petrovich. On the street pages of textbooks and a stuffed animal.
bleeding soldier
Ukrainian military vehicles, including tanks, ambulances and armored personnel carriers, come and go on the road leading into the city.
In the sweltering heat, a military ambulance pulled up to fix a flat tire, its rear doors opened for air. Inside, the paramedic is pressing the bandages of a bleeding soldier, with another young soldier on a stretcher next to him.
Rare residents venture out by bike or on foot in search of supplies. Some elderly people fill plastic bottles with water from a rubbish bin near the fire station.
“They see us as separatists because we stayed,” says Igor, a pensioner, referring to local officials and even the region’s governor.
“We’re normal people,” assures a young woman pushing a stroller filled with bottled water.
Others complain that they have not received their pension. “We are in Ukraine. Should they bring an armored vehicle and distribute the money,” Igor growls.