KYIV – A Russian attack killed at least two people and injured six on May 1 in the Ukrainian town of Hirnyk, just over 12km from the most tense front-line area, a local official said.

Russian troops used a multiple rocket launcher for the strike, regional governor Vadym Filashkin said on the Telegram messaging app.

Images he shared alongside the post showed private houses destroyed by fires and damaged by blast waves.

Hirnyk is just about 12km to 15km from the active combat zone near Ukraine’s Maryinka in the Donetsk region, where Russian troops have stepped up their offensive push.

Ukraine’s army chief Oleksandr Syrskyi recently described the situation in the Maryinka area as one of the most difficult.

Outgunned and outnumbered, Kyiv troops are desperately waiting for an inflow of fresh ammunition and weapons, delayed for months by political wrangling in the US Congress.

Although some weaponry has been already coming, President Volodymyr Zelensky urged a significant acceleration in the speed of deliveries, saying the whole battlefield situation directly depended on it. REUTERS