Ukraine Digs for Survivors in Rubble of Apartment Building Destroyed by Russian Missile

Ukrainian authorities were working to pull people from the rubble of a residential building in the east of the country, which Ukrainian officials described as one of a series of civilian sites hit by Russian missiles or long-range artillery in recent days.

The death toll from the Russian missile attack Saturday on the five-story structure in Chasiv Yar, in the Donetsk region, rose to 19 people, according to Ukraine’s emergency services. Eight survivors had been pulled from the rubble as of Monday morning.

“It was a missile strike. And everyone who gives orders for such strikes, everyone who carries them out targeting our ordinary cities, residential areas, kills absolutely deliberately,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video posted online late Sunday night.

Artillery duels and airstrikes have remained intense, especially near the front lines in eastern Ukraine, even as some analysts say Russia appears to have paused the advance of its ground forces. Mr. Zelensky said there had been 34 Russian airstrikes on Sunday alone.

Russia has repeatedly said its forces don’t target civilians, and reporters saw victims in uniform pulled from the rubble. The Russian Ministry of Defense said on Monday that it had targeted infrastructure used by Ukrainian forces in Chasiv Yar.

After capturing the whole of the eastern Luhansk region, Moscow has placed its forces on an “operational pause,” according to the Institute for the Study of War, as Russia shifts its focus toward taking the Donetsk region, which with Luhansk makes up the industrial Donbas region.

As the West ferries modern weaponry into Ukraine, Russia’s military has stepped up long-range missile strikes on positions that are far from the front lines.

Moscow has also relied on what it has called long-range precision strikes on military bases and infrastructure away from the front lines. Some have led to mass casualties, such as at a train station in Kramatorsk, where nearly 60 were killed and more than 100 injured, and a shopping mall in Kremenchuk, killing at least 20.

British intelligence previously said Russia’s shortage of more modern precision strike weapons would likely result in further civilian casualties.

Oleh Synyehubov,

governor of Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, said Russian missile attacks began there around 3:40 a.m. on Monday. One missile destroyed a school, he said, while another rocket hit a six-story residential building. Several people were injured, he wrote on the Telegram messaging app, but no casualties had been recorded.

“All exclusively on civilian objects,” Mr. Synyehubov wrote. “This is absolute terrorism.”

Though strikes have continued across the country, the bulk of Moscow’s firepower has been trained on the Donetsk region. Russia and pro-Russian separatist forces already control part of the province, including the capital, Donetsk. Capturing the rest of the province would give Moscow full control of the Donbas region, which the Kremlin made its priority after pulling its forces out of central Ukraine in late March.

The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense said on Monday that several parts of the Donetsk region had been hit with barrel bombs, whose use in populated areas is banned by the United Nations. In addition, the ministry said there were “signs of enemy units preparing to intensify combat operations in the Kramatorsk and Bakhmut areas.”

Pavlo Kyrylenko,

head of the Donetsk regional military administration, said 593 civilians have died in the Donetsk region, and another 1,550 have been injured, since the full-scale invasion began in February.

Ukrainian forces, meanwhile, are preparing for a counteroffensive in the southern Kherson region, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a U.S. think tank, and officials have been advising civilians to leave the region. Neither side has made significant territorial gains in recent days, according to the British Ministry of Defense.

On Monday, Europe was bracing for a sharp reduction in the flow of natural gas from Russia as the Nord Stream pipeline was scheduled to shut down for 10 days of annual maintenance. European governments fear the pipeline, the main artery for Russian gas to reach Germany, won’t come back online after Moscow already reduced gas deliveries through the conduit by 40% in recent weeks.

Moscow has blamed the reductions on Western sanctions that it says are depriving the pipeline of crucial equipment, including a turbine that has been in Canada for repairs. Ukrainian officials criticized Canada for recently deciding to return the turbine to Germany for use in Nord Stream. Berlin wants to return it to Russia, saying the move would show that Moscow has been using the turbine as an excuse for a political decision to cut gas deliveries to Europe.

In a joint statement released Sunday, the Ukrainian ministries of Energy and Foreign Affairs accused Canada of bending “the sanctions regime to the whims of Russia. This dangerous precedent violates international solidarity.”

—Mauro Orru contributed to this article.

Write to Ian Lovett at [email protected]