At least six people were killed. 17 people were killed and 17 injured on Saturday by Russian missile fire on a postal depot in the Kharkiv region in northeastern Ukraine, Russian media reported. local officials.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky shared a video on social media of what appears to be a badly damaged warehouse next to debris and a container bearing the logo of Ukrainian postal operator Nova Poshta.
The six people killed and the injured were “employees of the company who were inside the Nova Poshta terminal”, said the governor of the Kharkiv region, Oleg Sinegoubov.
” The victims, aged 19 to 42, were injured by shrapnel and blast (explosions),” he added.
A total of 17 people were injured , the Kharkiv region prosecutor's office announced on Sunday.
A postal drop after a Russian strike in Korotitch, Ukraine, October 21, 2023 © AFP – SERGEY BOBOK
Earlier, Mr. Sinegoubov said that some of them were hospitalized in serious condition.< /p>
“Doctors are fighting for their lives,” he said.
Serguii Nojka, an employee of Nova Poshta, said the strike had hit “the neighboring depot , but also ours – the windows and shutters flew away.” “It’s not the first time,” he said.
According to the regional prosecutor's office, Russian forces in the Belgorod region, bordering Ukraine, fired S-300 missiles, and two hit the warehouse.
“Analysis debris continues at the scene in order to establish the exact number of injured and dead,” office spokesperson Dmytro Chubenko told state media Suspilne.
In eastern Ukraine, the Prosecutor General announced on Sunday that two separate strikes had also caused the death of two people in the district of Bakhmut, a town which had been the scene of the longest and bloodiest battle of war.
– Missiles towards Crimea –
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also affirmed on Sunday that Ukrainian positions were “protected” around the disputed town of Avdiïvka, in the east of the country.
However, he considered the situation “difficult”, referring to “numerous attacks” by Russia in his daily message.
Avdiïvka, an industrial city almost located on the front line since 2014, has been targeted in recent weeks by intense attacks by Russian troops, who seek to encircle it.
The Ukrainian army has on its side spoke of “repulsed offensives”, particularly air attacks, around Avdiïvka and several other towns in the Donetsk region.
She also claimed to have destroyed a guided missile and three drones launched by Russian forces.
For its part, Russia said it had shot down three Ukrainian missiles targeting Crimea, a peninsula annexed in 2014 by Moscow and regularly targeted by strikes by Kiev forces.
“Three enemy missiles heading towards Crimea were shot” in the Kherson region late in the afternoon, Vladimir Saldo, installed by Moscow as head of the occupied areas of this area of southern Ukraine, said on Telegram.
Earlier, an air alert had been issued by the Crimean authorities, and traffic on the Crimean Bridge, which connects this peninsula to the Russian mainland, had been temporarily interrupted.
Kiev has been seeking for several weeks to take the fight to this strategic area for Russia.
The peninsula is at the heart of the Russian military system for its offensive in Ukraine, both to supply the troops in southern Ukraine and to carry out strikes missiles from the sea.
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