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Russian strikes killed 21 civilians in and near the Ukrainian city of Kherson on Wednesday, including attacks on a hypermarket, railway and crossing stations, gas stations and residential buildings, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.
Forty-eight people are known to be injured, Zelenskyy said on the Telegram messaging app. “All civilians! With the day not over yet! In one area!” he wrote.
He described the target as “a trail of blood left behind by the Russians with shells.”
Officials earlier said 12 victims were in the city of Kherson, the region’s capital, where a hypermarket was set on fire while people were doing their morning shopping and an explosion tore through a train station.
Four others were killed in villages outside the main city in attacks from the Russian-held Kherson region. They were among three engineers trying to repair the damage done to the power grid in the previous Russian bombing.
Pools of blood and piles of debris lay on the ground outside the Kherson hypermarket, the doors of which had been badly damaged and covered, Reuters reporters at the scene said.
The Interior Minister said the victims were all customers or workers at the hypermarket.
“When the enemy can’t achieve anything on the battlefield, they attack peaceful cities,” Ukrainian military spokesman Serhii Cherevatyi said.
There was no comment from Russia
Russia has not commented on the attack on Kherson, one of four Ukrainian regions it annexed last September. Moscow denies targeting civilians in its invasion of Ukraine that began in February 2022.
Many windows were smashed in the train station, and at least two survivors were seen being carried away on stretchers. Three women who had been eating at the time of the attack said they covered the bottom of the table.
Moscow has stepped up its airstrikes in Ukraine in recent days as Kyiv prepares a counteroffensive it hopes will try to recapture the territory it controls in the Kherson region.
Ukrainian troops recaptured the city of Kherson in November after almost eight months of occupation, but Russian troops retreated only to the opposite side of the Dnipro River, from where they are now evicting the city.
Regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin on Wednesday announced a curfew in the city of Kherson that will be in effect from Friday evening until Monday morning due to “law enforcement”. He did not provide any other details.
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