Russian missile attack kills 16 people in eastern Ukraine
- 6 September, 19:41
As Ukraine’s counteroffensive against Russia enters fourth month, Russia launched another missile attack on the country’s civilian infrastructure. Afresh missile attack in eastern Ukraine killed 16 people, including an infant on Wednesday. The attack targeted shops, a market and pharmacy in Kostyantynivka settlement near Bakhmut city that has been the venue of heavy fighting in the past few months. Ukrainian officials said 28 others were injured in the attack that targeted the market with the use of a ballistic missile.
Condemning the deadly attack, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on his Telegram channel that “Russian evil must be defeated as soon as possible”, describing the attack as an “utter inhumanity”. “Russian troops are terrorists who will not be forgiven and will not be left in peace,” Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal wrote on Telegram. “There will be a just retribution for everything.”
The footage of the attack shared by Volodymyr Zelensky showed civilians walking along the market street before the missile struck on Wednesday afternoon.
The missile attack was launched just hours after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Kyiv in his third visit to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion. The attack also came after Zelenskiy replaced the country’s defence minister Oleksii Reznikov with Rustem Umerov, a Crimean Tatar, in the biggest reshuffle since the start of the war. In his first remarks since his appointment this week, Umerov pledged to take back “every centimeter” of Ukraine’s captured lands.
