Pokrovsk, Ukraine - Rescue workers combed through the rubble of damaged buildings in the city of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine on Tuesday, the day after Russian strikes killed at least nine people.

Pokrovsk sits just 30 miles from the eastern frontline, where Moscow says it is gaining ground and repelling Ukrainian attacks.

Two missiles – launched 40 minutes apart – damaged residential buildings, a hotel, catering establishments, shops, and administrative buildings on Monday, Pavlo Kyrylenko, head of the Donetsk region's military administration said.

AFP correspondents on the ground saw rescuers evacuating survivors from the rubble of a five-storey building, and carrying the wounded into ambulances.

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Those killed include two children and a high-ranking emergency official of Donetsk region, according to Igor Klymenko, Ukraine's minister of internal affairs.

"We are resuming the demolition of rubble," he said early Tuesday after the rescuers "were forced to suspend work for the night due to the high threat of repeated shelling."

President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday that Moscow had struck a residential building, and shared a video on social media of civilians helping wounded people and rescuers clearing rubble from a building that had lost its top floor. The footage also showed a second building that appeared heavily damaged.

The city had a pre-war population of around 60,000 people.

The death toll from the heavy Russian missile attack on Pokrovsk has climbed to nine, President Volodymyr Zelensky said.

"This is a deliberate decision of the terrorists to cause the greatest pain and damage," Zelensky said in his evening video message on his Telegram channel on Tuesday.