Russian strike on Kharkiv shopping centre kills 14 as Zelensky calls for Western support

Holly Evans
·3-min read
Firefighters extinguish the blaze at a shopping centre in Kharkiv (AP)
Firefighters extinguish the blaze at a shopping centre in Kharkiv (AP)

A crowded DIY store in the Ukrainian region of Kharkiv was hit by a Russian strike on Saturday, leaving 14 people dead.

Two guided bombs hit the Epicentre hypermarket in a residential area of the city, regional governor Oleh Syniehubov said on national television.

Thick black smoke was seen billowing into the air as a massive fire broke out at the shopping centre, with president Volodymyr Zelensky confirming 44 people had been injured.

Officials said that 11 of the dead had been identified while seven people remain missing after the deadly strike, and 120 people are understood to have been in the centre at the time.

The city centre is covered with debris after the Russian missile attack (AP)
The city centre is covered with debris after the Russian missile attack (AP)

The past week has seen an uptick in strikes on the city after Russian troops stormed across the border, opening a new front north of the city.

Russia has bombarded Kharkiv, which lies less than 30km (20 miles) from its border, throughout the war, having reached its outskirts in a failed bid to capture it in 2022.

Mr Zelensky issued a plea to Ukraine’s Western allies to help boost air defences to keep the country’s cities safe. Meanwhile, French president Emmanuel Macron denounced the attack on the store as “unacceptable” in a social media post.

A separate early evening missile strike hit a residential building in the centre of the city of 1.3 million. The number of people wounded by that strike had climbed to 25 by Sunday morning.

The missile left a crater several metres deep in the pavement at the foot of the building, which also housed a post office, a beauty salon and a cafe.

Zelensky confirmed 14 people had been killed and 44 injured in the attack (AP)
Zelensky confirmed 14 people had been killed and 44 injured in the attack (AP)

Emergency workers ushered away residents of nearby apartment buildings while some of the injured were seen with blood on their faces.

Just over the border, in Russia’s Belgorod region, the regional governor said four residents died in Ukrainian attacks on Saturday.

Andriy Kudinov, director of the suburban shopping centre, told local media the hardware store was full of shoppers buying items for their summer cottages.

It took 16 hours to fully extinguish the fire at the centre, which had raged over an area of 13,000 square metres (15,548 square yards), interior minister Ihor Klymenko said.

Rescuers, medics and journalists occasionally had to rush away from the scene of both strikes on the city and take cover on the ground, fearing another strike, as has occurred during several recent Russian attacks.

Dmytro Syrotenko, a 26-year-old employee of the DIY centre, said: “I was at my workplace. I heard the first hit and ... with my colleague, we fell to the ground. There was the second hit and we were covered with debris. Then we started to crawl to the higher ground.”

It is believed around 120 people were in the store at the time (Reuters)
It is believed around 120 people were in the store at the time (Reuters)

He added he was taken to safety by a rescue worker who helped him, several colleagues, and shoppers.

Mr Zelensky, in his nightly video address on Sunday, said the strike and carnage prompted widespread condemnation that should lead to “absolutely just consequences” and again underscores the need for Ukraine to secure sufficient air defences.

“This, in order for us to have enough air defence systems at least to defend Ukraine, our cities,” he said. “And so that our partners muster the resolve for preventive defensive actions against Russian terrorists.”

Ukraine, he said, would keep pressing its partners to speed up deliveries of F-16 fighter aircraft “to strengthen our defences against terrorist attacks on our cities and pressure from the Russian army on the front line”.

Moscow denies deliberately targeting civilians, but thousands have been killed and injured during its 27-month invasion of Ukraine.

  • Up next
  • Up next
  • Up next
  • Up next

Latest stories

  • Horror as dad stopped at UK airport on flight back home and sent back to Spain

    “They told him we’ll all have to go to Spain and start a new life there, or that we should separate and he should go back to Spain by himself - it’s just horrible"

  • The British Army trains in Kenya. Many women say soldiers raped them and abandoned children they fathered

    Seventeen-year-old Marian Pannalossy cuts a striking figure wherever she goes in Archer’s Post, a small town 200 miles north of Nairobi. She lives alone and is light-skinned in a place where mixed-race people are a rarity and therefore ostracized.

  • Cameron, not Farage, destroyed the Conservatives

    David Cameron is back from outer space to tell us Nigel Farage wants to destroy the Conservative Party, that he’s playing “dog-whistle” politics and, we can infer, the Tories ought to run a mile from him. Thus the battle lines of the next leadership contest are drawn. Early advantage goes to elites who will say the party wandered too far to the Right – a view endorsed by a billion deadly dull podcasts made by people who think the Today programme is insufficiently subjective.

  • Angela Rayner is a threat to European security

    It has become trite to say that the world is now more dangerous than it has been since the end of the Cold War – or perhaps even the end of the Second World War. Trite but true.

  • Islamic State prisoners ‘liquidated’ as Russian authorities end jail siege

    Islamic State prisoners who took two guards hostage in a Russian jail have been killed and their captives freed, officials said on Sunday.

  • Russian troops surrender to an elite brigade as the Kharkiv front holds, Ukraine says

    In a video released by Ukraine's 3rd Assault Brigade, Russian troops appear to be surrendering in Vovchansk.

  • David Cameron is a disgrace to Britain

    Why would anybody trust the Conservative Party to make the big decisions about the future of Britain, when they can’t even agree on what to do about Nigel Farage?

  • One-Two Punch From the Skies Is a Massive Blow to Putin

    Ukraine’s military has spent the last two years chronically short of planes. Its prewar stocks were already small in number and mostly dated from the Soviet era. When NATO and other countries sent help, they focused on either sending the same older models or keeping existing aircraft in the air through maintenance and spare parts. Russia, meanwhile, has a larger and often more advanced air force.However, new planes are on the way to help Ukraine. For nearly a year, countries like the Netherlands

  • Her middle school security guard held her captive for 10 years. Now Tanya Kach is revealing how she survived a decade locked upstairs

    Tanya Kach was 14 years old when she vanished in 1996. A decade later, she was found at her middle school security guard’s home, where she was being kept captive. Now, with the help of fellow kidnapping survivor Elizabeth Smart, she’s telling her story. Andrea Cavallier reports

  • Huge poll predicts every seat in Scotland in General Election

    A FRESH poll has predicted the result of every seat in the General Election, with the Tories set to retain just one seat in Scotland.

  • Reform manifesto live: Nigel Farage unveils plans for 'radical rethink' of NHS

    Reform UK leader Farage is unveiling his party's manifesto - which he is calling a 'contract with the people'.

  • Vladimir Putin has had another bad week – and eyes are now on the Ukraine peace summit

    It has been another bad week for Vladimir Putin. In direct response to his unprovoked invasion, Ukraine has this week been able to sign a 10-year security pact with America - a bridge to its eventual membership of NATO, even if that is still a very, very long way away. EU accession talks for Ukraine will also begin before the end of the month.

  • Fuming locals hit with £10k bill after breaking bizarre fence rule

    Residents living by a picturesque marina have been ordered to pay £10,000 for a new fence - to stop them helping boat users with their shopping. People living in Albion Mill in Worcester have been banned from passing bags over the existing railings. To avoid a 20-minute walk carrying heavy bags, boat owners leave their shopping at metal railings on the opposite side of the pontoon where their boats are moored. They then walk around the apartments to access Diglis Marina and have their bags passed over the railings by kind-hearted Albion Mill residents. Apartment managers now plan to erect a 2m (6.5ft) high 35m (114ft) long fence to block off the pontoon after two people complained about boat owners trespassing. They say the current practice means boat owners access a private car park and say some people have been climbing over the metal railings. But furious residents claim they are being punished for helping boat owners.

  • The Right should fear Rachel Reeves more than Keir Starmer

    In one of the most famous psychological experiments of the past 30 years, Harvard-educated researchers Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons asked a group of young people, three in black T-shirts, three in white, to pass a basketball around a confined space.

  • Labour to slap higher council tax on homes with big gardens, say Tories

    Home owners with gardens will pay higher council tax under plans being considered by Labour, it is claimed.

  • Drivers slam 'worst parking ever' after cars dumped on roundabout outside mosque

    Angry drivers have slammed 'Britain's worst parking' after cars were dangerously abandoned on a busy city roundabout outside one of the UK's biggest mosques. Thousands of Muslims descended on Central Jamia Mosque Ghamkol Sharif in Small Heath, Birmingham, after celebrating Eid-al-Adha on Monday (17/6). But shocking photos show how dozens of worshippers sparked traffic chaos by dumping their vehicles on one of the busiest roundabouts in the city. Onlookers said there was at least one collision and several near-misses as drivers attempted to reverse off the Poet's Corner roundabout into oncoming traffic. And despite the huge numbers of illegally parked cars, it's believed there were no parking fines issued throughout the morning. Simon Gutteridge, 40, who had been trying to get to work when he got stuck along the A45 Small Heath Highway, said it was a 'miracle nobody was badly hurt or killed'.

  • Farage is right: Wales is an utter disaster

    Adam Smith’s dictum – that there is a great deal of ruin in a nation – is being tested to the limit in 21st century Wales. After 25 years of Labour control, it lags behind the rest of the UK on a range of metrics. Nigel Farage is wise to launch his “contract” with the people in Merthyr Tydfil, if his aim is to warn the British public just how much they might suffer under Keir Starmer.

  • France is on the brink of all-out civil conflict

    As some 500,000 Left-wingers marched in France’s cities yesterday, shouting anti-Fascist slogans, never had Lenin’s phrase seemed more apposite: “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.”

  • Lara Trump Names Difference Between GOP And Dems, And Critics Aren’t Having It

    Donald Trump's daughter-in-law, who is the co-chair of the Republican National Committee, was accused of gaslighting with her claim.

  • Trump boasts of cognitive test, then flubs doctor's name

    Donald Trump is so proud of a cognitive assessment he took while president that he boasted about it in a speech Saturday, while attacking what he claims is US President Joe Biden's lack of mental acuity.As part of his attack on what he says is the 81-year-old Biden's declining mental acuity, Trump told the laughing crowd in Detroit that the president had been lost while at the G7 in Italy, turning "to look at trees," while other world leaders were looking at a parachutist who'd just landed in an