Russian strike on Kharkiv DIY store kills 2, dozens wounded

AFP | Kharkiv

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Russia yesterday bombed a hardware superstore in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, killing two people and wounding more than 30, Ukraine officials said, in an attack condemned as “vile” by President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Kharkiv regional governor Oleg Synegubov said at least two people were killed when two guided Russian bombs hit the store. “Two people were killed.

They were men who worked in the hypermarket,” Synegubov said in a video posted on Telegram. “The number of wounded has gone up to 35 people,” Kharkiv’s mayor, Igor Terekhov, posted on Telegram.

Thick black smoke billowed from the gutted building of the Epitsentr DIY superstore in the northeastern outskirts of the city, as firefighters sprayed water on a blaze sparked by the strikes, an AFP journalist saw. The Epitsentr chain sells household and DIY goods.

“As of now, we know that more than 200 people could have been inside the hypermarket,” Zelensky said on Telegram, condemning the daylight attack on an “obviously civilian” target.

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

Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, is just a few dozen kilometres from the border and regularly comes under attack from Russian missiles -- strikes on the city killed seven people Thursday.

Fresh strike Later yesterday, another strike hit the centre of Kharkiv, injuring eight, Terekhov said, without giving details. Zelensky had visited Kharkiv on Friday and met officials to discuss the defence of the surrounding region.

Yesterday, he urged world leaders to supply Ukraine with “sufficient air defence protection” to “prevent such terrorist attacks”.

“Russia struck another brutal blow at our Kharkiv -- at a construction hypermarket -- yesterday, right in the middle of the day,” Zelensky said.

“Only madmen like Putin are capable of killing and terrorising people in such a vile way,” he added, referring to the Russian president who ordered his troops into Ukraine in February 2022.