2 dead in Russian attack on DIY store in Ukraine, hundreds of people feared inside

Kharkiv:

Russia on Saturday bombed a hardware superstore in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, killing at least two people and injuring more than 20, in an attack condemned as “vile” by President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Kharkiv regional governor Oleg Synegubov said at least two people were killed and 24 injured when “two Russian guided bombs hit a construction hypermarket” and “a fire broke out on more than 15,000 square meters.”

Videos posted by witnesses on social media showed a huge column of black smoke rising into the sky from a fire at the Epitsentr store, located in an area of ​​large stores next to a parking lot.

The Epitsentr hypermarket chain sells household and DIY products.

The city of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest, is regularly attacked by Russian missiles, with strikes in the city killing at least seven people 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 managed to halt Moscow’s progress and was counterattacking.

“So far, we know that more than 200 people could be inside the hypermarket,” Zelensky said on Telegram, condemning the daytime attack on an “obviously civilian” target.

“Russia dealt another brutal blow to our Kharkiv – at a construction hypermarket – on Saturday, right in the middle of the day,” Zelensky said.

“Only crazy people like Putin are capable of killing and terrorizing people in such a vile way,” he added.

“There were a lot of workers and shoppers inside. Now the fire is all over the territory,” said the president.

Kharkiv Mayor Igor Terekhov said that, according to the store owner, 15 store employees had no contact and approximately 200 people were in the building at the time of the strikes.

“We have a large number of missing people. There are many injured,” Terekhov wrote on Telegram.

“Apparently, the attack took place in a shopping center where there were many people – this is pure terrorism.”

On Saturday, Russia shelled the village of Kupiansk-Vuzlovyi, a railway hub in the Kharkiv region near the border, wounding five people, the regional prosecutor’s office said in a statement.

He stated that two vehicles were attacked: a car with two passengers and an ambulance with a driver, a paramedic and a 64-year-old patient.

Russia also carried out airstrikes in the Kupyansk district, damaging a factory and residential buildings, the prosecutor’s office said.

In the eastern region of Donetsk, shelling on Saturday killed a 40-year-old woman and injured four, said the head of the regional administration, Vadym Filashkin.

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