KYIV - Ukrainian officials said at least 38 people, including 12 children, were wounded in a Russian missile strike on Tuesday which an officer said targeted a military funeral in the northeastern Kharkiv region.
Television footage from the small town of Pervomaiskyi showed a nine-storey residential building with smashed windows and black smoke pouring out. Mangled cars were in flames nearby, and a man sat in an ambulance with blood over his face.
Regional governor Oleh Synehubov said an Iskander missile had slammed into a residential quarter in Pervomaiskyi at 1.35pm Kyiv time (6.35pm Singapore time).
The apartments of about 2,000 people were damaged in the attack on the town, which lies near the border with Russia, and residents were being provided with hot meals, he said.
“We weren’t at home, we went for a walk in the park. I don’t know what happened, I heard an explosion, probably a missile,” a local resident, who gave her name only as Alla, said on the street as she hugged her granddaughter.
“I only remember that when the explosion sounded, we were thrown up into the air. Then we continued walking, we saw blown out windows everywhere, I saw cars on fire. I just can’t get a grip of myself, my legs are still shaking.”
Prosecutors said the youngest of the 38 people hurt in the attack was a child of three months. The child’s condition was not immediately clear.
Reuters television footage showed about 100 people gathered at a funeral in Pervomaiskyi, some of them in uniform and some in civilian clothes.
Major Maksym Zhorin, a former commander of a fighting unit known as the Azov battalion that is now part of the Ukrainian army, said the town was hit as people gathered for the funeral of Oleh Fadeenko, a soldier with the call-sign “Baby” who he said had been killed in combat near Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine.
“They targeted the site where the ceremony was taking place,” Maj Zhorin said on the Telegram messaging app.
Russia did not immediately comment on the attack. Moscow has denied deliberately targeting civilians, but its missile and drone attacks have repeatedly struck cities across Ukraine since the Feb 24, 2022 invasion. REUTERS
