President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia used his congratulatory messages to mark the 77th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany to single out the leaders of the Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics — two puppet states carved out of Ukrainian territory by the Kremlin — for their role in what he described as a continued fight against Nazism.
Mr. Putin said that the forces seeking to control the two eastern regions were pursuing the same goal as their ancestors: “the liberation of their native land from Nazi filth.”
Dozens are feared dead after a Russian airstrike hits a school building, officials say.
Dozens of people are feared dead after a Russian airstrike leveled a school in eastern Ukraine on Saturday, local officials said, as Russian forces kept up their unrelenting bombardment of towns and cities across the region.
The Ukrainian government said the basement of the school in the village of Bilohorivka, in the Luhansk region, was sheltering civilians, a claim that could not be independently verified. The village is only a few miles from the front line and has come under repeated assault.
