A Russian glide bomb struck a village in eastern Ukraine as people stood in line in the open air to collect their monthly pension. The blast killed at least 24 people and injured 19 others, the Ukraine Emergency Service said.
In a related development, Poland's armed forces were on a heightened state of alert overnight yesterday and early today because of what they described as "further massive airstrikes against targets located in Ukraine".
"To ensure the security of Polish airspace, the operational commander of the Polish armed forces has activated all necessary procedures. Polish and allied aircraft are operating in our airspace, and ground-based air defence and radar reconnaissance systems have reached the highest level of alert," the Operational Command of Poland’s Armed Forces said in a statement posted on social media.
It said the actions were "preventative" and designed to secure the country's airspace and protect people in "areas adjacent to the threatened area".
The Russian glide bomb hit the Donetsk region village of Yarova at around 11am. The village lies less than 10km from the front line. Donetsk regional head Vadym Filashkin said 23 of the dead were pensioners.
Yarova resident Hennadii Trush said his wife was killed in the blast as she waited to collect the pension of her bedridden mother-in-law. Afterwards, Trush fled Yarova with his elderly mother, who was carried out on a stretcher.
In shock and with soot still on his face, Trush wept as he described the scene of the attack. "It was beyond words," he told The Associated Press. "Before, strikes landed on the outskirts. This time it was right in the centre of the village."
It was the latest Russian attack to kill civilians. More than 12,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed in the three-year war, the United Nations said.
"Frankly brutal," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a post on Telegram of yesterday's attack, urging the international community to make Russia pay economically for its full-scale invasion through additional sanctions.
"The world should not remain silent," Zelensky wrote. "The world should not remain inactive. The United States needs a reaction. Europe needs a reaction. The G20 needs a reaction. Strong action is needed so that Russia stops bringing death."
With US-led peace efforts making no headway in recent months, Russia had escalated its aerial barrages of Ukraine. On Sunday, Russia hit the capital, Kyiv, with drones and missiles in the largest aerial attack since the war began on February 24, 2022.
‘Whole village is on fire’
Pavlo Diachenko, head of communications for the Donetsk regional police, said he arrived at the scene in Yarova shortly after the strike.
"The picture was horrific — the whole village is on fire," he told AP. "Private houses were burning, and people tried to put out the flames with their own hands. There were many drones overhead."
Yarova is located north of the Donetsk city of Lyman, an area where Russia has intensified attacks recently as it probes for weaknesses in Ukrainian defences and seeks to advance into northern parts of the region.
Despite the risks, many people remained in their homes because they had no means of relocating or they needed to care for elderly relatives with disabilities.
Russia is escalating aerial attacks
Russia has been scaling up its aerial attacks, despite US President Donald Trump’s attempts to persuade Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to agree to a ceasefire and enter peace talks with Zelensky — proposals that Ukraine has endorsed.
European Council President Antonio Costa rebuked the Kremlin for its repeated strikes on civilians.
"Is this what Russia means when it talks about peace?" Costa asked on social media. "When will President Putin accept to start peace talks already accepted by President Zelensky?"
The major barrages prompted concerns that Ukraine is using up its air defences quicker than they can be replaced by its Western allies.
US and European officials met at the US Treasury Department to discuss various forms of economic pressure to exert on Russia, including new sanctions and tariffs on Russian oil purchases, a person familiar with the meeting told AP.
The talks were expected to continue.
Retirees stand in line for their pensions
Glide bombs are retrofitted Soviet weapons that have laid waste to eastern Ukraine for months. Some of them now weigh 1360kg, which was six times bigger than when they were first used in battle in 2022.
In Ukrainian villages, where there are no ATMs and older people are unfamiliar with digital banking, pensions are commonly delivered to the local post office on a certain day of every month. Retirees stand in line to pick up their pension in cash.
Photos and video of the scene posted on official Ukrainian channels showed bodies lying around a damaged white car with yellow branding that was parked beneath trees.
The vehicle damaged in the attack was a mobile post office, Ukrposhta’s network development director for the Dnipro and Donetsk regions, Maksym Sutkovyi, said in a phone interview.
The village post office closed down just a week ago, he said, after the last two staff decided to evacuate. It was the only place where locals could collect their pension, top up a cell phone account or even buy some essential goods, he said.
The head of Ukraine’s national postal service, Ukrposhta, said the company constantly changed security procedures. Ihor Smilianskyi said the car was parked under trees to reduce the risk of it being spotted by the enemy.
"But apparently, someone gave away the coordinates," Smilianskyi wrote on Facebook.
The territory was occupied by Russia in 2022, but was liberated by Ukraine’s armed forces in a counteroffensive later the same year.
Victims show blast injuries, burns
The dead were taken to a local morgue. Multiple bodies lay in the intake hall as forensic teams tried to identify them. Many had died from blast injuries.
Zinaida Hrymailo went there to identify the body of her cousin, a 75-year-old woman killed in the strike. "They were all lying in one heap. My sister has been completely burned," Hrymailo said.
As the cousin died while collecting the pension, her paralysed husband remained in the village all alone, according to Hrymailo.
Her cousin, she added, had been preparing to leave Yarova after collecting her pension. "Everything had been prepared, they were going to leave."
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