'People aren't safe anywhere, anytime'

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00:00 is a city that has seen deadly attacks before, but the brutality of this missile strike has

00:07 shocked people in the city and across the country. In a country that has been at war

00:12 for 15 months now, a missile hit a residential area, hitting a clinic, a medical clinic,

00:20 and a veterinary hospital there. So we know that two people have been confirmed dead.

00:26 They're still searching for others, missing perhaps beneath the rubble, and the regional

00:33 governor has said that at least 30 people were injured. And some of the pictures that

00:37 have been coming out of the destruction are just so shocking, and some of the witness

00:41 accounts. One of those killed was a 69-year-old man who just happened to be in the street

00:46 passing by at the time. Two of those taken to hospital were children, young children

00:51 aged three and six. And from the veterinary hospital, incredibly graphic witness accounts

00:59 coming out of there of the remains of burnt out, burnt, killed animals being carried out

01:05 by the staff. I mean, I apologise for the graphic detail. It is upsetting. But this

01:09 is the reality of these strikes that continue to hit Ukrainian cities, even here in Dnipro

01:16 in central eastern Ukraine, which is around 150, 200 kilometres from the front lines.

01:22 Again, it just shows, as we've been seeing in Kiev, that Russia continuing to strike

01:28 these major population centres, as well as the fighting near the front line, well, it's

01:33 sending a message out that people aren't safe anywhere, any time. President Zelensky said

01:39 that Russian had proved once again they were fighting against everything that is humane

01:44 and honest. And he said again that our time is our people. And basically they're echoing

01:51 his message to the West and the rest of the world that they need more help, more help

01:56 fast to try and fight back.

01:58 Catherine, this morning you were at Bakhmut, near to that place which of course has now

02:03 been occupied by the Russians, if we are to believe what Wagner is saying. Although we

02:08 understand Ukraine still holding on to what's been described as a micro district. You've

02:12 been there. Tell us what the situation is.

02:15 Yeah, it's really unclear what's going on inside the city of Bakhmut itself. I mean,

02:21 Ukrainians have been insisting they still hold a tiny pocket there on the western fringes

02:26 of the town. But I was visiting troops on the flanks of Bakhmut city to the south, who

02:33 are mounting a counter offensive, slowly but surely, they say. They say they're taking

02:38 around back around 150 metres a day over the past month. They say they've advanced by around

02:43 a kilometre. So slow progress there. But they're basically at full swing. They're not taking

02:49 leave from the front line. They're carrying on. I was with a mortar unit who were targeting

02:55 Russian troops, they said, early in the morning, just after dawn, as the Russians, they'd spotted

03:01 by drone, digging trenches there around Bakhmut, trying to reinforce their position there.

03:07 So while the battle in the city looks like it has been particularly brutal and drawing

03:13 to a close for now, the battle on the outskirts of Bakhmut is continuing. And when we asked

03:19 those troops there what they thought about this much speculated about Ukrainian counter

03:24 offensive, they said, well, it's already started. We're already part of it. And they think it's

03:28 going to be a series of small pushes like they're doing with reinforced weaponry, with

03:34 new weapons from the West, new weapons being produced by Ukraine that they were using.

03:38 They were actually quite optimistic, which might be surprising, you think, given the

03:41 situation in Bakhmut. But for them, they say that this offensive is already ongoing and

03:47 it's going to be in small pushes in places around the front line.

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