A Russian missile attack on a humanitarian Ukrainian convoy in southern Ukraine left at least 23 dead and dozens injured, local officials say.
A huge crater next to a line of vehicles in the city of Zaporizhzhya testifies to the violence of the attack. Windows and windshields were broken.
Half a dozen bodies, apparently civilians. Luggage and coats lay on the asphalt. A survivor said her boss was killed in the attack.
“She had two children. I was leaving the cafe to go to the bathroom when it happened. I ran back and tried to find her. The cafe was demolished, and there were a lot of bodies lying around. It was all so horrible, “said Viktoriia Yosypenko.
Responding to the attack in the early hours of Friday on the outskirts of the regional capital of the Zaporizhzia region, the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said that Russia was a “state terrorist”.
He said that Russia launched 16 missiles at the city and has promised to punish the authors for “every lost Ukrainian life”.
The convoy was hit when people prepared themselves to go to the occupied part of the Russian region to collect their family members and also to offer humanitarian aid. Near the rocket’s impact crater “We came in line to join a column heading towards Kherson,” she said.
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“We went out to see what number we had online. Then the first rocket hit, behind the wagons.
“We fell to the ground. Then the second hit in the middle of the row. There was glass everywhere, and people screaming and running. I don’t remember much.
“It was very scary. Then I got up to see what was happening, to help the wounded. I was trying to help an injured young man when the third explosion occurred. ”
The attack comes as Russian President Vladimir Putin prepares for a signing ceremony in Moscow to annex Zaporizhzhya along with the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, and Kherson.
The move follows self-proclaimed referendums in the eastern and southern regions, which have been condemned as a farce by Ukraine and the West.
Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, and Moscow currently controls most of the Zaporizhzhya region, including Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, but not the regional capital.
Moscow-installed regional official Vladimir Rogov blamed “Ukrainian militants” for the attack on Zaporizhzhya
