A Russian strike on Tuesday killed at least 24 people during the distribution of pension payments in a front-line town of eastern Ukraine threatened by Moscow’s push to capture the entire industrial region, officials said Tuesday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy posted amateur video showing several corpses strewn on the ground, and a burned-out minivan near a playground, images that Agence France-Presse could not independently verify.
“A brutally savage Russian airstrike with an aerial bomb on the rural settlement of Yarova in the Donetsk region. Directly on people. Ordinary civilians. At the very moment when pensions were being disbursed,” Zelenskyy wrote.
AFP journalists in eastern Ukraine saw mourners weeping outside a morgue where staff had laid out at least 13 corpses in black body bags.
The blast killed at least 24 people and injured 19 others, the Ukraine Emergency Service said. A spokesman for the Ukrainian postal network, Ukrposhta, confirmed to AFP that one of its vehicles was damaged in the attack and its department head — identified as Yulia — had been hospitalized. Ukrposhta, which delivers public services in front-line regions, said it would change how it distributes pensions and basic services there.
Policemen and medics help people to move from an armored car to a ambulance from the village of Yarova, that was hit by Russian aerial strike, which killed dozens of civilians, in Sloviansk, Donetsk region, Tuesday, Sept.9, 2025. / Credit: Alex Babenko / AP
The Ukrainian military said Moscow had dropped a glide bomb. Such weapons are fixed with wings to help them glide over dozens of miles. They are part of an arsenal developed by Russia to hit deeper into Ukrainian territory and stretch the front line.
Ukraine’s prosecutor general said that it had launched a war crime investigation. Andrii Sybiha, Ukraine’s foreign minister, called the strike “barbaric” and a “heinous crime.”
There was no immediate comment from Moscow or the Kremlin on the strike.
Russia has been steadily advancing in the eastern Donetsk region for months, concentrating its firepower on the territory and deploying troops from other parts of the front line, Kyiv has said. Moscow has claimed the industrial region as part of Russia despite not having full control over it. Authorities in Donetsk have been appealing to civilians to flee the fighting since the early days of Russia’s invasion in February 2022.
Kyiv says the Kremlin has massed 100,000 troops at a key part of the front line for a fresh offensive. Yarova lies nearly five miles from the front line and had a pre-war population of around 1,900 people.
Police officers and medics evacuate Olha Trush, 86 from the village of Yarova, that was hit by Russian aerial strike, which killed dozens of civilians, in Sloviansk, Donetsk region, Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2025. / Credit: Alex Babenko / AP
Ukrainian commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrsky said this week that Russian forces outnumbered Ukrainian troops threefold in some areas of the front, and by six times in regions where Moscow has concentrated its forces.
Zelenskyy urged Ukraine’s allies to issue a response to the attack, and said “strong actions are needed to make Russia stop bringing death.” Sybiha said Ukraine was contacting its allies to inform them of the strike.
“A response is needed from the United States. A response is needed from Europe. A response is needed from the G20,” Zelenskyy said.
U.S. President Donald Trump says he has tried to find a way to end the war in recent weeks but has little to show for his efforts. He recently met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska, followed by a meeting with Zelenskyy and other European leaders at the White House. Mr. Trump recently told CBS News that he is still committed to finding a peaceful solution to the conflict.
“I’ve been watching it, I’ve been seeing it, and I’ve been talking about it with President Putin and President Zelenskyy,” Mr. Trump said in a phone interview. “Something is going to happen, but they are not ready yet. But something is going to happen. We are going to get it done.”
The strike comes just days after a Russian missile crashed into the Ukrainian government headquarters in central Kyiv, the first time the complex had been hit in the three-and-a-half-year war. Tens of thousands have been killed and millions forced from their homes in Europe’s bloodiest conflict since World War II.
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