New Delhi: At least 60 people are feared dead in the Russian bombing of a school in the Ukrainian village of Bilohorivka, the Lugansk regional governor said on Sunday. Governor Serhiy Gaidai said the Russian forces dropped a bomb on Saturday afternoon on the school where about 90 people were sheltering, causing a fire that engulfed the building. “Bilogorivka (village) was hit in an air strike,” AFP quoted the Governor as saying.“The bombs fell on the school and unfortunately it was completely destroyed. There were a total of 90 people, 27 were saved,” the Governor said on Telegram.
“Sixty people were likely to have died under the rubble of buildings,” he added, Reuters reported.
This comes as the Russian forces kept up their barrage of southern Ukraine, hitting the major Black Sea port of Odesa with cruise missiles and bombarding the steelworks up the coast in Mariupol, where the Ukrainian fighters remained trapped underground.
In a sign of the unexpectedly effective defence that has sustained the fighting into its 11th week, Ukraine's military flattened Russian positions on a Black Sea island that was captured in the war's first days and has become a symbol of resistance, AP reported.
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The Ukrainian leaders have warned that attacks would only worsen in the lead-up to Victory Day, when Russia celebrates Nazi Germany's defeat in 1945 with military parades.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is believed to want to proclaim some kind of triumph in Ukraine when he addresses the troops on Red Square on Monday.
Earlier on Saturday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his people embody the spirit of those who prevailed during the Second World War.
Blinken accused the Russian President of trying to twist history to attempt to justify his unprovoked and brutal war against Ukraine.