August 8, 2023 - Russia-Ukraine news

Two Russian Iskander missiles hit the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk within 30 to 40 minutes of each other, killing seven people, including an emergency worker who was responding to the first strike, officials said Tuesday.

The bombardment began at 7:15 p.m. local time on Monday (12.15 p.m. ET), a local military leader said, when a short-range ballistic missile hit what President Volodymyr Zelensky called an “ordinary residential building” in the city in the Donetsk region.

First responders arrived on the scene to treat the wounded and dig people out from under the rubble, only to be targeted themselves.

The second strike prompted authorities to suspend work to clear the rubble due to fear of another strike, despite the widespread damage.

“The blast radius was very large – windows in many buildings were smashed, at least 2,000 windows,” he added.

Local officials said a residential building, hotel, shops and administrative buildings were damaged. The Druzhba (Friendship) Hotel and Corleone pizzeria, both popular with journalists, were damaged in the attack according to geolocated footage from the scene.

Pavlo Kyrylenko, head of Donetsk Regional Military Administration, said that among the seven people killed were five civilians, a rescuer and a serviceman.

He said there were 81 people injured, including 39 civilians, two children, 31 police officers, seven rescuers and four military personnel.

Ukraine’s National Police said that the deputy head of the Ukrainian State Emergency Service in the Donetsk region, Andrii Omelchenko, was killed, and confirmed that 31 police officers were injured.

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Ukrainian officials said Russia targeted residential buildings in the city of Pokrovsk overnight in what is called a “double-tap” strike – which describes two separate attacks on the same target, with a brief interval in between.

This tactic gives time for first responders to arrive at the scene of the initial blast, only to be caught up in the second. At least 31 police officers and seven rescue workers have been injured in Pokrovsk, according to officials.

Reporting from Kharkiv in April 2022, shortly after the war began, a CNN team witnessed a double-tap strike first hand, while documenting the work of Ukrainian paramedics responding to Russian shelling.

CNN’s Clarissa Ward and her team traveled with Alexandra Rudkovskaya and Vladimir Venzel, both young paramedics, to the site of a Russian strike on a residential complex. They had received a call for help from a Ukrainian man wounded by the blast.

As CNN’s team arrived at the site, observing the paramedics trying to locate the injured man in the damaged building, another strike was launched – hitting the building next door.

After fleeing the scene, CNN later found Rudkovskaya and Venzel treating the injured man by the side of a road some distance away. The back window of their ambulance had been shattered by the blast. The paramedics asked the injured man various questions, but he was unable to make sense of them: The explosion had deafened him.

Asked how they cope with working in such dangerous conditions, the paramedics said it was their duty.

While her mother had begged Rudkovskaya, her only daughter, to leave that line of work and go to a safer place, Rudkovskaya said she could not fathom doing so.

According to local officials, out of the 250 ambulances in Kharkiv at the time, 50 had been rendered inoperable due to injuries sustained by explosions – a measure of the prevalence of Russian double-tap strikes in the early months of the war.

Watch the full report here:

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The Russian Ministry of Education has unveiled new history textbooks for high-school students, education minister Sergey Kravtsov said Monday. They include sections on what Moscow calls the “special military operation” in Ukraine, a long-term Kremlin euphemism for the war.

The four textbooks for 10th and 11th grade students detail “the reasons for the start of the special military operation, the purpose of the special military operation, denazification, demilitarization,” Kravtsov told Russian state media.

The new textbooks will be taught as a part of a standardized history course across Russian schools starting September 1.

Kravtsov also vowed to update the textbooks again after the end of the war, “as soon as we win,” according to RIA Novosti.

Ukraine has removed Soviet-era signage from a hilltop monument in Kyiv, amid a conflict that has seen the country fight to reassert its cultural identity in the face of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion.

Kyiv last week replaced the Soviet hammer and sickle symbol with a trident – the Ukrainian coat of arms – on the shield of the Motherland Monument, which dominates the capital’s skyline.

“We believe that this change will be the beginning of a new stage in the revival of our culture and identity, the final rejection of Soviet and Russian symbols and narratives,” the Ukrainian culture ministry said. The week-long operation to dismantle the Russian insignia was completed on August 6, according to the ministry.

The monument, a 102 meter-tall statue that towers over the surrounding area, is made of steel. Its construction began in 1979, and it depicted a woman holding a sword and a shield emblazoned with the Soviet hammer and sickle symbol.

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China’s top diplomat Wang Yi told his Russian counterpart that Beijing remains “impartial” on the war in Ukraine, a day after a Chinese delegation participated in international talks on ending the conflict that included Kyiv, but not Moscow.

In a call Monday, Wang stressed to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that China and Russia are “trustworthy and reliable good friends and partners.”

The call followed two-day talks hosted by Saudi Arabia, where around 40 nations including key Ukraine allies the United States, Britain and Germany, as well as India and a number of Middle Eastern nations, met to discuss the resolution of the conflict, nearly 18 months since Moscow’s invasion began.

The group agreed on the importance of international dialogue to find “common ground that will pave the way for peace,” according to official Saudi media.

Lavrov “appreciates and welcomes the constructive role played by China” toward a political resolution of the “Ukraine crisis,” China’s Foreign Ministry said in their readout of Monday’s call.

Read the full story here.

Ten more people have been confirmed wounded following deadly Russian missile strikes on residential buildings in the Donetsk city of Pokrovsk, a senior Ukrainian official said Tuesday.

Minister of Internal Affairs Ihor Klymenko said at least seven people were killed and 67 others injured, including 29 police officers, seven rescue workers and two children.

The removal of debris has resumed after work was suspended overnight "due to the high threat of repeated shelling," he added. 

The Russian strikes come after the United Nations warned last week about the impact of a "new wave of attacks" on civilians in Ukraine, including aid workers.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has warned Russia it may be left without ships if Moscow's forces continue to attack Ukrainian ports.

Speaking to Latin American media in a news conference Sunday, Zelensky said "we don't have as​ many weapons, but if they continue to shoot, they may be left without vessels by the end of the war," Argentina’s La Nacion newspaper reported.

Zelensky's remarks come after Ukrainian sea drones hit a Russian oil tanker and a warship in recent days.

Some context: The United Nations has condemned Russia's recent attacks on Ukrainian grain storage. Moscow's decision to pull out of the Black Sea grain deal and its repeated attacks on Ukrainian ports and infrastructure "are causing insurmountable damage to the agricultural sector in Ukraine and may further accentuate hunger for the world’s poorest people," Denise Brown, a UN humanitarian coordinator for Ukraine, said in a statement Saturday.

At least seven people were killed and dozens of others injured after Russian missiles struck a residential building in Pokrovsk, a city in the eastern Donetsk region, Ukrainian officials said Monday.

Separately, Russian strikes killed at least two civilians in the Kharkiv region and one person in the southern city of Kherson, officials said.

"Every hit to residential buildings hurts anew," Ukrainian first lady Olena Zelenska tweeted following the attacks.

Here's what else you need to know:

Russian shelling in parts of Donetsk region has continued for years, and every time residential buildings are hit it "hurts anew," Ukrainian first lady Olena Zelenska said Monday after Russian missiles hit homes in the eastern city of Pokrovsk.

What we know so far about the strikes: At least seven people were killed and 57 were injured in Monday's strikes on the city, according to authorities. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia had launched two missiles that struck the residential building and he vowed to hold Moscow accountable for the attack.