Russian strike on a hypermarket in Ukraine: at least six killed, dozens injured, according to kyiv

At least six people were killed. killed and around forty injured Saturday in a Russian strike on a hypermarket DIY &agrav; Kharkiv, Ukraine's second city, an attack described as "despicable" by the Ukrainian president.

According to the regional governor, Oleg Synegoubov, this Russian attack was carried out using two guided aerial bombs.

“Unfortunately we already know that six people were killed instantly (…) Forty people were injured, 16 are missing,” he said.

Images broadcast on Ukrainian social networks show the building of the Epitsentr hypermarket with a gutted roof from which a huge column of black smoke escapes, firefighters dousing the fire started by the strikes with water.

According to the firefighters, the fire has burned 10,000 square meters but it is contained.

Still in uniform , Lyubov, a cleaning lady at the hypermarket, told how she fled from the store.

“It happened suddenly. At first we didn't understood, everything went black and everything started to fall on our heads,” she said. “Fortunately my phone lit up, thanks to its torch I found where I was, but in front of us everything was already burning.”

The Epitsentr hypermarket chain sells household appliances and DIY products.

“Russia has dealt another brutal blow to our city of Kharkiv – a hypermarket of construction – Saturday, in the middle of the day”, denounced President Volodymyr Zelensky on Telegram, condemning an attack in broad daylight on a “clearly civilian” target.

Russian state agency TASS cited a Russian security source as saying a missile strike had destroyed a “military warehouse and command post” in the building.

A Ukrainian firefighter puts out a fire in a hypermarket after a Russian strike in Kharkiv, May 25, 2024 © AFP – SERGEY BOBOK

The regional governor indicated that there was “no contact with certain members of staff” and that “according to our information, visitors could still be in the building”.

“Only madmen like Putin are capable of killing and terrorizing people in such a despicable way,” blasted Mr. Zelensky, attacking the Russian president who ordered his troops to attack Ukraine in February 2022.

French President Emmanuel Macron deemed this Russian strike “unacceptable”. “France shares the Ukrainians’ pain and remains fully mobilized alongside them,” the head of state wrote on X, deploring the “numerous victims, children, women, men,” “families.”

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– Anti-aircraft defense –

On Saturday evening, a new strike hit the center of Kharkiv, injuring 18 people in an area where there is a post office, a hairdresser and a cafe, according to the city's mayor Igor Terekhov.

The Ukrainian president once again called its Western allies to provide more air defense systems to its country.

“If Ukraine had sufficient air defense systems and modern combat aircraft, such Russian strikes would have been impossible,” he argued. “Every day we appeal to the world: give us air defense, save people.”

Ukrainian firefighters intervene after a fire in a hypermarket hit by a Russian strike in Kharkiv, May 25, 2024 © AFP – SERGEY BOBOK

The city of Kharkiv, which had a population of 1.5 million before the war and is located near the Russian border in northeastern Ukraine, is regularly targeted by Moscow's forces , who also launched a land offensive in the region on May 10.

This offensive allowed them to seize several localities and force kyiv to dispatch reinforcements in the area. Ukraine, however, assured Friday that this assault had been “stopped”.

Russian forces also launched several attacks on Saturday in the region.

They bombed the village of Kupiansk-Vouzlovyi, a railway junction in the Kharkiv region close to the border, injuring five people, the regional prosecutor's office announced in a press release.

According to the same source, two civilian vehicles, including an ambulance, were targeted by gunfire.

A Ukrainian firefighter puts out a fire in a hypermarket after a Russian strike in Kharkiv, May 25, 2024 © AFP – SERGEY BOBOK

In the same region, Russia bombed the Kupiansk district, damaging a factory and residential buildings, according to the prosecutor's office.

< p>In the east, in the Donetsk region, a bombing killed a 40-year-old woman on Saturday and injured four people, according to regional governor Vadim Filachkine.

In Russia, the governor of the Belgorod region, bordering Ukraine, declared on Saturday that two people had been killed there in a Ukrainian bombing.

” Ukrainian armed forces fired on the village of Oktyabrsky using a rocket launcher,” Vyacheslav Gladkov wrote on Telegram, specifying that a “man and a woman were” mortally “wounded by shrapnel. 'shell'.

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