A Russian bomb exploded on Tuesday in a crowd of older people as they picked up pension payments in a village near the front line in eastern Ukraine, killing at least 20 people, President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
The local authorities in the Donetsk region later reported a death toll of 21 and said that an additional 21 people had been injured.
A video shared by Mr. Zelensky showed dead bodies scattered around a burned minibus. The veracity of the video could not immediately be independently confirmed.
The village, Yarova, was hit with a glide bomb, a type of munition only used close to Russian-controlled territory, the authorities said.
“My condolences to all the families and loved ones of the victims,” Mr. Zelensky said in a statement posted on X.
He wrote that the strike, the latest in Russia’s unrelenting attacks on Ukrainian towns and cities, should prompt a global reply.
“A response is needed from the United States,” Mr. Zelensky wrote. “A response is needed from Europe. A response is needed from the G-20. Strong actions are needed to make Russia stop bringing death.”
On Sunday, after Russia launched a huge barrage of drones and missiles at Kyiv and other cities, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that the Trump administration was prepared to “increase pressure” economically on Russia to get it to negotiate. Europe is planning a new round of sanctions against Russia.
The bombing in the village came after the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, said that sanctions would not “be able to force the Russian Federation to change its consistent position,” indicating that Moscow did not plan to stop fighting anytime soon.
Maria Varenikova covers Ukraine and its war with Russia.
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