The Russian missile that hit eastern Ukraine on Wednesday turned an outdoor market into a fiery, blackened ruin where weeping civilians looked for loved ones among the mangled, burned bodies scattered across the ground.
The blast in the town of Kostiantynivka killed 17 people and wounded at least 32 in one of Russia’s deadliest strikes in months, Ukrainian officials said.
“There was no military target here. This is a peaceful neighbourhood in the city centre,” Stefan Slovak, who lives in Kostiantynivka, said in a trembling voice.
Behind him were the remains of the market, where charred bodies could be seen in the street, their clothes still burning, near cars engulfed in flames.
Behind a market stall holding fresh parsley, rescuers found a woman in civilian clothes with her head covered in blood.
Images taken by Associated Press reporters showed emergency workers extinguishing fires and tending to the wounded amid the wreckage that included blackened cars.
“They are shooting at peaceful civilians. Are we soldiers here? Are we shooting at them? No! So why? They are just trying to destroy Ukrainian nation,” said Nadezhda Negoda.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the strike was deliberate. He has visited the town many times on trips to the front line.
“Those who know this place are well aware that it is a civilian area. There aren’t any military units nearby,” Mr Zelensky said during a news conference in Kyiv with visiting Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen.
He said the strike reflects the situation on the battlefield.
“Whenever there are any positive advances by Ukrainian defence forces in that direction, Russians always target civilian people and civilian objects,” he said.
Ukraine’s minister of internal affairs, Ihor Klymenko reported that emergency workers extinguished the flames that burned an area of 3,200sq ft. Eight market installations and some cars were destroyed.
About 30 pavilions were damaged, along with 20 shops, an administrative building, an apartment building and some power lines, according to Ukraine’s general prosecutor’s office.
The attack came as US secretary of state Antony Blinken arrived in Kyiv, where he was expected to announce more than one billion dollars in new American funding for Ukraine in the 18-month-old war.
