Six people were killed Sunday in a Russian missile strike targeting a densely populated district in the city of Kostyantynivka in eastern Ukraine, according to the police.

Agence France-Presse correspondents saw a large hole in the courtyard of a 14-storey tower whose windows were shattered, and the roofs of nearby houses were destroyed.

Donetsk region police said Russia fired S-300 and Uragan missiles in a "major attack", with six strikes shortly after 10 am (0700 GMT).

Kostyantinivka is located about 27 km from the city of Bakhmut, where the fiercest battles take place.

The Public Prosecution announced that three women and three men, whose ages ranged between the late forties and mid-sixties, were killed, and eight people were injured.

The police said that the strike targeted "16 residential buildings, eight houses, a nursery, an administrative building, three cars and a gas pipeline."

In front of the badly damaged tower amid falling broken glass, Lilia, a 19-year-old psychiatry student, said, "I am very lucky not to be at home at the time."

When she inspected the damages in her apartment located on the ground floor of a building built in the Soviet era, the retiree Nina said that the internal doors and the entrance door were ripped out by the blow, adding, "An internal wall was broken and no window was spared."

Soldiers were inspecting the site after the strike, and an armed man in civilian clothes was seen.