Ukraine Conflict: Death toll climbs to 11 from Russian missile strike in Sloviansk

After a Russian missile attack on a residential neighbourhood in the eastern Ukrainian city of Sloviansk, rescuers retrieved additional dead bodies from the debris on Saturday.

Kyiv (Ukraine): The death toll from a Russian missile strike that hit Ukraine's Sloviansk on Friday has climbed to 11, New York Times reported. After a Russian missile attack on a residential neighbourhood in the eastern Ukrainian city of Sloviansk, rescuers retrieved additional dead bodies from the debris on Saturday. A 2-year-old boy had been rescued from a building on Friday but then died in an ambulance, the officials said.

Quoting the governor of the Donetsk region Pavlo Kyrylenko, Al Jazeera reported that seven Russian S-300 missiles had been fired at Sloviansk, west of the city Bakhmut, the site of the heaviest fighting on the Ukrainian front line. The assault happened following Russian President Vladimir Putin's Friday signature on a bill that will make it simpler to enlist civilians in the military and prevent them from fleeing the country if called up, reported Al Jazeera.

A draftee would be prohibited from travelling internationally under the law, which Putin signed on Friday, and would need to report to an enlisting office after receiving electronic call-up papers. Last year, after Putin declared a mobilisation to support the soldiers in Ukraine, tens of thousands of men left Russia.

Moscow claimed it was attempting to seize more districts of the devastated Bakhmut when it launched the attack on Sloviansk, whose population have left in large numbers since Russia's invasion, according to Al Jazeera. The Russia-Ukraine war that started on February 24 has taken numerous lives and the war continues to escalate between the two nations even now. (ANI)