The death toll from a Russian attack on a hardware store in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv rose to 11 on Sunday, the region's governor said, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned the attack as “despicable.”
“Unfortunately, the death toll at the Epitocenter has risen to 11,” Kharkiv Regional Governor Oleg Sinegbov said in a Telegram post, referring to Saturday's attack on the store.
He had earlier said two Russian guided bombs had struck the store, killing six people “on the spot”, wounding 40 and leaving 16 missing.
Two of the dead were “men who worked in a hypermarket,” Sinegbov said in a Telegram video.
An AFP journalist saw firefighters spraying water on blazes sparked by the air raids as thick black smoke rose from the burnt-out Epitsentr DIY supermarket on the city's northeastern outskirts.
The Epitsentr chain sells household goods and DIY supplies.
Lyubov, who works as a cleaner at a hypermarket, described how he managed to escape the building still wearing his uniform.
“It happened all of a sudden. I didn't understand it at first. Everything went dark and everything was falling on our heads,” she said.
“Thank goodness my phone lit up, the flashlight helped me know where to go, but everything in sight was already on fire.”
“At the moment we know that there may have been more than 200 people inside the hypermarket,” Zelenskiy said in a Telegram message, condemning the daytime attack as clearly targeting civilians.
“France shares the pain of the Ukrainian people and will continue to work fully alongside them,” he said.
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