AFP
Death toll from attack on Kharkiv hardware store in Russia rises to 12: minister
Russian forces attacked a hardware store in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, killing 12 people on Sunday, the interior minister said, and President Volodymyr Zelenskiy denounced the attack as “despicable.” Ukrainian Interior Minister Igor Klymenko said the fire at the Epitsentor megastore had spread to 13,000 square meters and injured 43 people. Another 16 people were missing, he said Sunday. “The fire at the Kharkiv construction megastore, which was caused by a Russian attack, took more than 16 hours to put out,” he said in Telegram. “Russian shelling killed 12 people and wounded 43.” Klymenko said forensic experts and investigators were continuing to work to identify bodies at the ruins of the Epitsentor DIY store on the city's northeastern outskirts. Earlier, Kharkiv Governor Oleg Sinegbov said the two who died worked at a hypermarket, adding that the city had been under “massive rocket fire all day.” Still in uniform, Lyubov, a store cleaner, recounted how she escaped the building. “It happened suddenly, I didn't understand at first. Everything went dark, everything started falling on my head,” she said. “It was good that my phone lit up thanks to my flashlight, I knew where to go, but everything in front of me was already burning.” Zelensky condemned the daytime attack on “clearly civilian” targets. “Putin is capable of killing and terrorizing people in such a despicable way,” he said, referring to the Russian president who ordered the deployment of troops to Ukraine in February 2022. Russia's state news agency TASS quoted a security source as saying that the missile attack on the hypermarket destroyed “military stores and a command post” in the shopping center. – Call for peace summit – In a video message on Sunday in front of the ruins of a publishing house bombed in Kharkiv last week, Zelensky called on U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping to personally attend a peace summit planned for June in Switzerland. “I appeal to world leaders … to the leader of the United States, President Biden, and the leader of China, President Xi Jinping … to support the peace summit with your personal leadership and participation,” Zelensky said. A high-level meeting on the Ukrainian war is due to be hosted by the Swiss government in Lucerne on June 15-16, and it says it has invited 160 delegations, but Russia will not attend. Biden has not confirmed his attendance, and it is unclear whether China will attend. Beijing has said it supports an international peace conference that would be recognized by both Russia and Ukraine. For Russia, “it is a pleasure to burn,” Zelensky said in the message, referring to the bombing of Kharkiv with S-300 missiles and guided bombs. The Ukrainian Air Force said Russia had fired another 14 missiles and more than 30 attack drones into Ukraine overnight and Sunday. It said it had shot down all but two of the missiles. In the central Vinnytsia region, shrapnel from the downed drone wounded three people and damaged houses and apartments, regional officials said. Another attack on Kharkiv city center on Saturday evening wounded 25 people in an area with high-rise buildings and research institutes, Sinegubov said. Ukraine's second-largest city, Kharkiv, is just a few dozen kilometers from the border and regularly comes under Russian missile attack. The 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 fighting back. bur-am/rox