A television tower was reportedly struck in the city of Lisichansk in eastern Ukraine on Wednesday amid an ongoing Russian military offensive in the country.
Several videos purportedly filmed in the city captured thick black smoke billowing from the area around the tower after what appears to have been a missile strike.
Lisichansk is located in the western part of Ukraine’s Lugansk region. According to 2019 data, the city, which is currently under Kiev’s control, is populated by more than 97,000.
On Wednesday, the Russian Defense Ministry confirmed that it had hit a TV tower in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev a day earlier.
The strike, which was carried out with high-precision weapons, was aimed at thwarting “information attacks” by Ukraine and didn’t affect any residential buildings, ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said.
The Kiev authorities have claimed that at least five people were killed and as many injured in the attack.
Russia began its “special operation” in Ukraine last Thursday, saying the incursion was needed to demilitarize and “denazify” the Ukraine government, which had been perpetrating “genocide” in the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Lugansk.
More than 1,500 Ukrainian military installations have been destroyed since the start of the operation, the Russian Defense Ministry has said. According to Kiev, Moscow’s actions have amounted to an unprovoked invasion.