At least 15 people died and five others were injured on Sunday in a Russian strike on an apartment building in Chasiv Yar town, eastern Ukraine, the regional governor said.

"The rescue operation is underway. Rescuers were able to bring out 15 dead and five injured," Donetsk regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said on Telegram. 

"At least 30 others are under the rubble" of the four-storey building, he said, after it was hit by a Russian Uragan missile.

The building was partially destroyed, AFP correspondents reported after arriving at the scene where rescuers with a mechanical digger were clearing the area.

"I was in the bedroom, I came out and everything started shaking, collapsing. What saved me was the force of the explosion pushing me into the bathroom, covered in blood. I barely got out," a resident who did not wish to give her name told AFP.

Having endured long battles to capture cities in the neighbouring Lugansk region, Russia is now trying to push deeper into Donetsk to consolidate its hold over the entire Donbas region in the east.

One of the officials leading the rescue operation, Vyacheslav Boytso, said contact had been established  with three people who were alive under the ruins.

"There is a chance to find them... They have enough air, they can breathe. They told us they are waiting to be saved," he told AFP.

According to the governor, 591 civilians have been killed while 1,548 others have been injured so far in the Donetsk region since the Russian invasion began on February 24.