(Kyiv) The death toll from the Russian strike on a DIY store in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second city, continues to rise, reaching 14 deaths on Sunday the day after this attack described as “despicable” by the Ukrainian president.
“The death toll stands at 14,” Kharkiv region governor Oleg Synegubov said.
A previous report communicated by the Ukrainian Minister of the Interior, Igor Klymenko, reported 12 dead, 43 injured and 16 missing following this attack.
” For them [les Russes], it’s a pleasure to burn. We all know who we are dealing with,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday.
“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,” he insisted. .
“Everything went black”
Mr. Klymenko stressed that it “took more than 16 hours to put out the fire in the store […] caused by targeted Russian strikes.
Images broadcast on Ukrainian social networks showed the Epitsentr building with a gutted roof from which a huge column of black smoke was escaping.
PHOTO SERGEY BOBOK, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
A firefighter waters the debris of a Kharkiv store destroyed by a Russian strike on May 26.
According to firefighters, the fire, which was brought under control, burned 10,000 square meters.
“It happened suddenly. At first we didn’t understand, everything went black and everything started to fall on our heads,” said Lyubov, a cleaner at the store. “Luckily my phone turned on, thanks to its torch I found where I was, but in front of us everything was already burning.”
The Epitsentr chain sells household appliances and DIY products.
Russian state agency TASS cited a Russian security source as saying a missile strike had destroyed a “military warehouse and command post” in the building.
“Only madmen like Putin are capable of killing and terrorizing people in such a despicable way,” blasted Mr. Zelensky, attacking the Russian president who ordered his troops to attack Ukraine in February 2022.
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.
“I appeal to world leaders […] to President Biden, the leader of the United States, and to President Xi, the leader of China […] Please support the peace summit 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 has invited more than 160 delegations but not Russia, which denounces the “peace formula” put forward by Mr. Zelensky, which amounts to a capitulation by 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.
In eastern Ukraine, Russia continued its slow advance on Sunday with the capture of a new village, Berestové.
For his part, Ukrainian Air Force Commander Mykola Oleshchouk reported on Sunday a nighttime Russian missile and air attack “using 14 aerial missiles and more than three dozen drones attack”.
He said all but two of the missiles were shot down.
In the Vinnytsia region (central Ukraine), fragments of a downed drone injured three people and damaged houses and buildings, regional authorities said.
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.
PHOTO FINBARR O’REILLY, THE NEW YORK TIMES
This building was damaged by an airstrike in central Kharkiv on May 25.
Kharkiv, which is located near the Russian border in northeastern Ukraine, is regularly targeted by Moscow’s forces, who also launched a ground offensive in the region on May 10.
This offensive allowed them to seize several localities and force Kyiv to send reinforcements to the sector. Ukraine, however, assured Friday that this assault had been “stopped”.