Ukraine war: Dozens feared dead after bomb hits school

Dozens of people are feared dead after a bomb hit a school in east Ukraine, where government forces are battling Russian troops and separatists.

Luhansk region’s governor, Serhiy Haidai, confirmed two deaths, saying 60 people were feared dead under the rubble of the school in Bilohorivka.

About 90 people had been sheltering in the building and 30 were rescued, seven of them wounded, he added.

Mr Haidai said a Russian plane had dropped the bomb on Saturday.

His accusation could not be verified independently and there was no immediate response from Russia.

Luhansk has seen fierce combat as Russian troops and separatist fighters seek to surround government forces, just over two months since the start of the Russian invasion.

Much of Luhansk, which along with Donetsk forms part of the Donbas region, has been under the control of the separatists for the past eight years.

Bilohorivka is close to the government-held city of Severodonetsk, where heavy fighting was reported in the suburbs on Saturday. One Ukrainian newspaper, Ukrayinska Pravda, says the village became a “hot spot” during fighting last week.

The blast brought down the building which caught fire and it took firefighters three hours to extinguish the blaze, according to the governor, writing on Telegram.

He said almost the entire village had been sheltering in the basement of the school.

The final death toll would only be known when the rubble had been cleared, the governor said.

Mr Haidai said a house in a neighbouring village, which he named as Shypilovo, had been hit by Russian shelling, and 11 people were trapped in its basement. Rescuers were still trying to reach the scene, he said, as shelling continued.

At the same time, there were reports of new fighting in eastern Ukraine on Sunday. According to separatist officials, government forces shelled Donetsk city and the town of Holmivskyi, Russian state media reported.

Elsewhere in the country, Ukrainian fighters at a steelworks in the port of Mariupol have told the world they will not surrender to Russian forces and have appealed for help to evacuate their wounded.

Russia has besieged the area for weeks, calling on defenders from the Azov battalion to lay down their arms.

But in a live news conference from the partially destroyed plant, members of the battalion said they would not give in.

One of them, Lt Illia Samoilenko, said: “Surrender for us is unacceptable because we can’t grant such a big gift to the enemy.”

He added: “We are basically dead men. Most of us know this. It’s why we fight so fearlessly.”

While the fighting rages, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has reiterated his country’s defiant approach with fresh denunciations of the Russian invaders.

In a speech commemorating World War Two, he accused Russia of implementing “a bloody reconstruction of Nazism” and said the Russian army was replicating wartime “atrocities”.

Footage in the Ukrainian leader’s video address showed him against a backdrop of destroyed residential buildings.

At the same time, Western governments have continued to show their support for Ukraine’s struggle.

Later on Sunday, Ukraine’s president held talks with G7 leaders – including US President Joe Biden and the UK’s Boris Johnson – via video conference.

After the meeting the leaders pledged their continuing support to Ukraine and their determination to wean themselves off Russian oil supplies. Payments for Russian energy amount to millions of dollars each day and help fund Russia’s war effort.

The prime minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, was due to meet Mr Zelensky in person after making an unannounced visit to the town of Irpin, near Kyiv, that was ravaged by Russian forces early in the invasion.

The speaker of the German Bundestag met Mr Zelensky in Kyiv on Sunday, too, while US First Lady Jill Biden crossed into Ukraine from Slovakia to meet Mr Zelensky’s wife, Olena Zelenska.

Since Russia’s invasion began on 24 February, the UN has recorded at least 2,345 civilian deaths and 2,919 injured in Ukraine, the High Commissioner for Human Rights said in an update last month. Thousands of combatants are also believed to have been killed or injured on both sides.

More than 12 million people are said to have fled their homes since the conflict began, with 5.7 million leaving for neighbouring countries and another 6.5 million people thought to be displaced inside the war-torn country itself.