Ukraine: death toll continues to rise after Russian strike on Kharkiv hypermarket

The results of the Russian strike on a hypermarket DIY &agrav; Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, continues to climb, passing through sixteen dead on Sunday the day after this attack described as "ignoble" by the Ukrainian president.

“Unfortunately, sixteen deaths have already been recorded,” said the governor of the Kharkiv region, Oleg Synegubov. A previous report communicated by the Ukrainian Minister of the Interior, Igor Klymenko, also reported 43 injured and sixteen missing.

“Russia is governed by people who want it to be the norm to burn lives, destroy cities and villages, divide people and erase national borders through war,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky denounced on Sunday.

Questioned by AFP, an employee of this hypermarket, Dmytro, said he and a colleague were buried by the collapsing roof following two explosions on Saturday.

“Fragments of the roof fell. Then we started to crawl towards the light. There was soot, everything was on fire. We tried to pull a few people with us, we crawled to the warehouse”, he says.

– “Everything went black”-

Mr. Klymenko stressed that it “took more than sixteen hours to put out the fire in the hypermarket.”

Images posted on Ukrainian social media showed the Epitsentr hypermarket building with a gutted roof from which a huge column of black smoke was escaping.

According to the firefighters, the fire which was brought under control burned 10,000 square meters.

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

“It happened suddenly. At first we didn't understand, everything went black and everything started to fall on our heads,” said Lyubov, a cleaning lady at the hypermarket. “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.

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

The 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.”

– Invitation to the Peace Summit –

President Zelensky on Sunday urged his American and Chinese counterparts, Joe Biden and Xi Jinping, to participate in a Peace Summit planned in Switzerland on June 15 and 16, without Russia.

A Ukrainian police officer covers the body of a victim killed by Russian bombing in Kharkiv, northeastern Ukraine, May 25, 2024 © AFP – SERGEY BOBOK

“I appeal to world leaders… President Biden, the leader of the United States, and President Xi, the leader of China… Please support the summit peace with your leadership and participation,” Zelensky said in a video message showing him in front of a bombed house in Kharkiv.

The conference is to be held in Lucerne in central Switzerland, which invited more than 160 delegations but not Russia, which denounces the “peace formula” put forward by Mr. Zelensky, which amounts to a capitulation of Moscow.

President Biden has not confirmed his visit and China, which has not commented on its participation, has argued that it supports an international peace conference recognized by both Russia and Ukraine.

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

In eastern Ukraine, Russia continued its slow advance on Sunday with the capture of a new village, Berestové.

For his part, the Ukrainian air force commander, Mykola Oleshchouk, reported on Sunday a Russian night missile and air attack “using 14 aerial missiles and more than three dozen drones attack”.

He indicated that all but two of the missiles were shot down.

< p>In the Vinnytsia region (central Ukraine), fragments of a downed drone injured three people and damaged houses and buildings, regional authorities said.

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

On Saturday evening, another strike hit central Kharkiv, injuring 18 people in an area where there is a post office, a hair salon and a cafe, according to its mayor Igor Terekhov.

Kharkiv, which is located near the Russian border in northeastern Ukraine, is regularly targeted by Moscow's forces, who launched an offensive on May 10 land in the region.

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