The death toll from a Russian attack on a hardware store in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv rose to 14 on Sunday, the regional governor said, as rescuers searched for bodies in the burnt wreckage.
Russian forces hit the Epitocenter supermarket on Saturday, sparking a massive fire and leaving 43 people injured, Interior Minister Igor Klimenko said earlier, with “16 people believed to be missing.”
“It took more than 16 hours to extinguish the fire that broke out at a construction hypermarket in Kharkiv due to an attack by Russian troops,” the minister said in Telegram.
Klimenko said forensic experts and investigators were continuing to identify the bodies at an abandoned shop on the city's northeastern outskirts.
The Epitsentr chain of hypermarkets sells household 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.
Ukrainian rescue services posted pictures of firefighters spraying water inside a burning building, whose roof was torn off and rubble was scattered everywhere.
The fire spread to an area of ​​10,000 square metres, but firefighters managed to identify the extent of the blaze, he said.
Ukraine's second-largest city, Kharkiv, is regularly hit by Russian missiles, and at least seven people were killed in an attack there on Thursday.
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.
'A brutal blow'
“Russia struck another brutal blow at our Kharkiv construction hypermarket 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.
“There were many workers and shoppers inside,” Zelensky said.
Kharkiv Mayor Igor Terekhov said the store owner said 15 employees had been lost and that around 200 people had been in the building at the time of the attack.
He described the attack as “pure terrorism.”
In the Kharkiv region, Russian forces launched an offensive in the border area on Saturday.
Russia shelled the village of Kupyansk Buzlovy, a railway hub in the Kharkiv region near the border, wounding five people, the regional prosecutor's office said in a statement.
Police said two vehicles were struck by gunfire: a car with two passengers and an ambulance with a driver, a paramedic and a 64-year-old patient inside.
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.