Kyiv: A Russian artillery strike struck a supermarket in the eastern Ukrainian town of Kostiantynivka in the front-line Donetsk region on Friday, killing at least ten people and injuring 35 others, according to Ukrainian officials. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the strike hit a supermarket and a post office, trapping people under the rubble.
The strike caused a fire that had been put out, the interior minister said. Heavy black smoke clouds rising from the destroyed building could be seen in the images and videos posted by officials. Emergency services continued working out the rubble looking for survivors, Zelenskyy said further.
Regional Governor Vadym Filashkin initially said Russia used artillery but later said the attack with from an X-38 air-to-surface missile. Nova Poshta, Ukraine's largest private postal company, said its cargo office in the supermarket was damaged in the strike.
Residential houses, shops and more than dozen cars were as well damaged in the attack, according to the interior minister's post on Telegram. Kostiantynivka lies just about 13 km from the active combat line in Ukraine's east. The region is one of the hottest areas of fighting as Russia targets areas in the direction of the strategic eastern logistics hub of Pokrovsk.
Russia declares emergency after Ukraine's unprecedented attack
Meanwhile, Moscow has accused Ukraine this week of launching a cross-border assault in Russia's Kursk region. At least 1,000 Ukrainian forces broke across the border on Tuesday (August 6) in a shock counter-offensive, after months of gradual Russian advances in eastern Ukraine, in one of its largest attacks since the war broke out.
Russian defence ministry said on Friday that Moscow was transferring extra forces to the Kursk region in response to a major Ukrainian incursion this week. It said columns with Grad multiple-launch rocket systems, artillery and tanks were heading into the area where Ukraine launched its attack on Tuesday.
Russia’s Ministry for Emergencies on Friday declared the situation in the Kursk region a “federal level” emergency after Ukraine's attack. “The operational situation in the Kursk region remains difficult,” Kursk acting governor Alexei Smirnov said on Telegram, adding that at least 3,000 people have been evacuated.
The assault came as the Ukrainian army toils to hold at bay an intense Russian push at places on the front line in eastern Ukraine, especially in the Donetsk region. Russian President Vladimir Putin has made clear he wants to capture the parts of Donetsk that the Kremlin’s forces don’t already occupy.
(with inputs from agencies)
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