Twelve dead in attack on holiday camp in Russian-held part of Ukraine, officials say
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A screengrab from a video posted online of a holiday camp site in the resort area of Kyrylivka, Ukraine, showing damaged buildings near a swimming pool.
PHOTO: USM/SK ROSSII
- Twelve people, including five children, were killed in a drone attack on a holiday camp in Russian-held Zaporizhzhia, with 19 others wounded, according to Russian-installed authorities.
- Russian officials accused Ukraine of deliberately targeting civilians, calling the attack an "inhuman crime," while Kyiv has not responded to the allegations.
- Russia opened a terrorism investigation; rescue teams recovered survivors and bodies amid extensive damage shown in videos of the resort area in Kyrylivka.
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Twelve people were killed, including five children, in an overnight drone attack on a holiday camp in a Russian-held part of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, Russian-installed local authorities said on July 25, accusing Ukraine of deliberately attacking civilians.
Kyiv did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Both Russia and Ukraine deny targeting civilians in the war launched by Moscow’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Nineteen people were wounded in the attack in the resort area of Kyrylivka, located on the coast of the Sea of Azov near the town of Melitopol, said Russian-appointed governor Yevgeny Balitsky.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Ukrainian drones carried out the attack on “sleeping people” at the camp.
She denounced “inhuman crimes”, also referring to an attack on a factory in Russia’s Kirov region on July 23 that killed six people.
A video posted online of the holiday camp showed shattered buildings, burnt-out cars and a pile of rubble next to a swimming pool.
Balitsky said crews from Russia’s Emergencies Ministry had extracted two survivors, including a child, and recovered another body from the rubble. He added that rescue operations had been completed.
“The enemy saw and understood who it was targeting,” he said on the Telegram messaging app.
Balitsky said the authorities in Kyiv were “ignoring any norms of morality and deliberately destroying the civilian population – adults and children”.
Russia’s Investigative Committee opened a terrorism case in response to the attack, the Russian state news agency RIA said. REUTERS