KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — An apparent Russian artillery strike struck a market in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson on Tuesday, killing at least seven people and wounding three others, authorities said.
The strike took place as shoppers moved among stalls at the city center market, regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin said.
He published a video showing the blurred corpses of people in civilian clothes lying near a stall selling tomatoes and other vegetables.
Ukraine’s Prosecutor’s Office said the attack was “most likely” carried out by Russian artillery and hit close to a public transport stop.
The city has not been a hotspot lately the warnow deep into its third year, as the fiercest battles have taken place in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, where the Russian army is pushing hard to gain ground before winter.
Ukrainian forces have hit back with one raid in Russia’s Kursk border areabut the government is waiting to see what further Western military and financial support it can count on.
The Kherson region was one of four regions, including Donetsk, Luhansk and Zaporizhia, that Moscow illegally annexed and partially occupied in September 2022. Russian President Vladimir Putin wants Ukraine to completely withdraw from these regions. Ukraine refuses.
Kherson fell into Russian hands after Moscow’s large-scale invasion in February 2022. Nine months later, a Ukrainian counter-offensive retook western parts of the Kherson region, including the regional capital of the same name.
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