Two dead in Russian attack on Ukrainian hardware store, hundreds feared in store

The Epitsentr hypermarket chain sells household and DIY goods.

Kharkiv:

Russia carried out a bomb attack on a hardware store in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Saturday. At least two people were killed and more than 20 injured. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned the attack as “heinous”.

Kharkiv region governor Oleg Synegubov said at least two people were killed and 24 injured when “two Russian guided bombs hit a hardware store” and “a fire broke out over an area of ​​15,000 square meters.”

Videos posted by witnesses on social media showed a huge column of black smoke rising into the sky from a fire at the Epitsentr store, which is located in an area of ​​large stores next to a parking lot.

The Epitsentr hypermarket chain sells household and DIY goods.

Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, is regularly attacked by Russian missiles. At least seven people were killed in attacks on the city on Thursday.

The latest attack came after Russia launched a ground offensive in the Kharkiv region on May 10. Ukraine said on Friday it had managed to halt Moscow’s advance and was now launching a counterattack.

“So far we know that more than 200 people could have been in the hypermarket,” Zelensky said on Telegram, condemning the broad daylight attack on an “obviously civilian” target.

“Russia dealt our Kharkiv another brutal blow on Saturday in the middle of the day – in a construction hypermarket,” said Zelensky.

“Only madmen like Putin are capable of killing and terrorizing people in such a heinous way,” he added.

“Many workers and shoppers were inside. Now the whole area is burning,” the president said.

Kharkiv Mayor Igor Terekhov said that, according to the store owner, 15 store employees had no contact and there were about 200 people in the building at the time of the strikes.

“Many people are missing. Many are injured,” Terekhov wrote on Telegram.

“Apparently the attack took place in a shopping centre where there were a lot of people – this is terrorism in its purest form.”

On Saturday, Russia shelled the village of Kupiansk-Vuzlovyi, a railway junction in the Kharkiv region near the border, wounding five people, the regional prosecutor’s office said in a statement.

Two vehicles came under fire, it was said: a car with two passengers and an ambulance with a driver, a paramedic and a 64-year-old patient.

Russia also carried out air strikes on the Kupiansk district, damaging a factory and residential buildings, the prosecutor’s office said.

In the eastern Donetsk region, a 40-year-old woman was killed and four injured in an attack on Saturday, said the head of the regional administration, Vadym Filashkin.

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