2023 Pokrovsk missile strike

On 7 August 2023, at around 7:15 p.m., during the Russo-Ukrainian War, the Russian Armed Forces used Iskander short-range ballistic missiles to strike the Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, Donetsk Oblast, twice.

Strike
After the first strike, the Russian forces waited for 40 minutes until rescue workers arrived to the scene to try to save the wounded and survivors buried in the rubble, and then launched a second strike which killed an official from the emergency services and wounded more people at the scene. 10 people were reported killed from the strikes, and 82 wounded. The search for further survivors was thus abandoned out of fear of another strike against rescue workers. After a few days, 122 tonnes of rubble were removed from the areas that were struck.

The strikes damaged at least 12 multi-story buildings, including a hotel and a five-floor apartment block. The Russian Defense Ministry claimed that its forces had hit a command post of Ukrainian army, though they referred to Pokrovsk by its defunct Soviet name, "Krasnoarmeysk". Ukrainian government rejected this claim and pointed out that the attack was reckless and aimed against civilian areas. The "double tap" attack was previously also used by the Russian forces in the Syrian civil war in order to maximize casualties.

Reactions
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in an online statement, accused Russia of trying to leave nothing but “broken and scorched stones” in eastern Ukraine. His remarks accompanied footage of a damaged, five-storey residential building with one floor partially destroyed.