At least 26 people were killed and dozens injured on Friday in several Ukrainian strikes on Russian-controlled areas in eastern and southern Ukraine, occupation authorities said.
A double strike notably targeted the village of Sadové, in the southern region of Kherson, partially occupied by Russia.
According to Vladimir Saldo, head of the Russian occupation of the region, an aerial bomb destroyed a store “with a significant number of visitors and employees” in this village, before a HIMARS missile struck the area, killing 22 people and injuring 15 others.
“After the first shot, residents of nearby houses ran out to help the victims, but shortly after, a HIMARS missile arrived,” Saldo was quoted as saying by Russian media.
He denounced a “vile murder of civilians” made possible by Western arms deliveries to kyiv, and a double strike intended to “cause the most victims”.
Earlier Friday, four people were killed and 57 injured by a US-made ATACMS missile strike on the eastern Ukrainian city of Lugansk, also under Russian control.
According to the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry, this Ukrainian strike notably caused the collapse of a multi-story apartment building.
“The total number of people injured in today’s missile strike on Lugansk is 57. Four of them died,” local Health Minister Natalia Pashchenko said on social media. .
According to the pro-Russian head of the Lugansk region, Leonid Passetchnik, two secondary schools, three nursery schools and a college were also damaged.
The Russian Defense Ministry, for its part, affirmed that “five American-made ATACMS missiles” had “deliberately targeted residential areas in the city of Lugansk”.
Four of these missiles were shot down by Russian air defense systems, while the fifth hit two residential buildings, according to this source.
Russia also claimed Friday, in another press release from its Defense Ministry, the capture of the village of Paraskoviïvka, in the Donetsk region, also in eastern Ukraine.
Paraskoviïvka is located about 30 kilometers southwest of Donetsk, the large Russian-held city in the eponymous region.
Russian troops have been gaining ground for months in the Donbass in the face of a Ukrainian army lacking men and ammunition, and also launched an offensive on May 10 in the Kharkiv region (north-east), seizing several localities.
On the Ukrainian side, a 71-year-old woman was killed in a Russian strike in Nikopol, in the Dnipropetrovsk region (center-east), according to Governor Serguiï Lyssak.