Kharkov:
Russia bombed a hardware store in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Saturday, killing at least four people and wounding 38, Ukrainian authorities said. President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned the attack as “despicable.”
Kharkiv regional governor Oleg Sinegbov said two Russian guided bombs had hit the store, “unfortunately killing four people already” and “injuring 38.”
In a video posted on Telegram, Sinegbov said the two dead were “men who worked in a hypermarket.”
An AFP journalist saw firefighters spraying water on blazes sparked by the bombing as thick black smoke rose from the ruins of the Epitsentr do-it-yourself supermarket on the city's northeastern outskirts.
Lyubov, who works as a cleaner at a hypermarket, described how he managed to escape the building still wearing his uniform.
“Everything went dark”
“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.”
The Epitsentr chain sells household goods and DIY supplies.
“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.
French President Emmanuel Macron wrote on X that the Russian attack on the store was “unacceptable.”
“France shares the pain of the Ukrainian people and stands with them in every possible way,” the French president wrote.
Russia's state news agency TASS cited security sources as saying the missile attack destroyed a “military warehouse and command center” inside the shopping center.
The regional governor said he had “not had any contact with any of the staff” and that “according to our information, visitors may still be in the building.”
Ukraine's second largest city, Kharkiv, lies just a few dozen kilometers from the border and is regularly hit by Russian missile attacks.
'A brutal blow'
Another attack late Saturday in central Kharkiv wounded 14 people in an area including a post office, a beauty salon and a cafe, Mayor Igor Terekhov said.
President Zelensky visited Kharkiv on Friday and met with officials to discuss the defense of the surrounding region.
He called on world leaders on Saturday to provide Ukraine with “adequate air defense” to “prevent such terrorist attacks.”
“Russia dealt our Kharkiv construction hypermarket a new brutal blow in broad daylight on Saturday,” Zelenskyy said.
“Only a madman like Putin could murder and terrorize people in such a despicable way,” he added, referring to the Russian president, who ordered the deployment of troops into Ukraine in February 2022.
The latest attack came after Russia launched a ground offensive in the Kharkiv region on May 10. Ukraine said on Friday it had successfully thwarted Moscow's advance and was counterattacking.
Ukrainian rescue services posted pictures of firefighters spraying water inside the burning Epitaph Center store, whose roof was torn off and rubble was scattered everywhere.
The blaze spread to an area of ​​10,000 square metres (108,000 square feet) but firefighters managed to bring it under control.
“There were many workers and shoppers inside,” Zelensky said.
Border Attack
Russia and Ukraine on Saturday blamed each other's militaries for attacks in their border areas.
Russia said Ukrainian artillery fire on a small town in the Belgorod border region killed two people and wounded 10.
Ukrainian prosecutors said Russia shelled the village of Kupyansk-Buzlovy, a railway hub in the Kharkiv region near the border, wounding five people.
Police said two vehicles were struck by gunfire: one a car with two passengers and the other an ambulance carrying a driver, a paramedic and a 64-year-old patient.
According to prosecutors, Russia also carried out airstrikes in the Kupyansk region, damaging factories and homes.
Shelling on Saturday in the eastern Donetsk region killed a 40-year-old woman and wounded four others, said Vadim Filashkin, head of the region's administration.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)