Russian shelling pounded a densely populated area in Ukraine’s second-largest city on Thursday, killing at least two people and injuring at least 21 with a barrage that struck a mosque, a medical facility and a shopping area, according to officials and witnesses at the scene. The police in the northeast city of Kharkiv said cluster bombs hit Barabashovo Market. a public bazaar where Associated Press journalists saw a woman crying over her dead husband’s body.
Local officials said the shelling also struck a bus stop, a gym and a residential building. The bombardment came after Russia on Wednesday reiterated its plans to seize territories beyond eastern Ukraine, where the Russian military has spent months trying to conquer Ukraine’s Donbas region, which is south of Kharkiv.
Ukrainian officials recently aired their plans to try to recapture Russian-occupied areas near the country’s southern Black Sea coast. Kharkiv mayor Ihor Terekhov said the attacks early Thursday targeted one of the most crowded areas of the city, which had a pre-war population of about 1.4 million. “The Russian army is randomly shelling Kharkiv, peaceful residential areas, civilians are being killed,” Terekhov said.
“Be careful!” The police claim that cluster bombs hit Barabashovo Market could not be independently confirmed. The AP journalists at the scene shortly after the attack reported seeing burned-out cards and a bus pierced by shrapnel. The Kharkiv region’s governor, Oleh Syniehubov, said four people were in grave condition and a child was among those wounded in the shelling. Russian forces also have shelled wheat fields in the area, setting them on fire, he said. Elsewhere, Russian forces shelled the southern city of Mykolaiv overnight as well as the eastern cities of Kramatorsk and Kostiantynivka, where two schools were destroyed after a civilian was killed on Wednesday, Ukrainian officials said.
As of 8am on Thursday, Russian shelling of cities across Ukraine killed at least five people and wounded at least 17 more in 24 hours, Ukraine’s presidential office reported. The scattered attacks illustrate broader war aims beyond Russia’s previously declared focus on the Donbas region’s Donetsk and Luhansk provinces, where front-line battles mostly unfolded in recent weeks. When it invaded Ukraine on February 24, Russia quickly seized territory but withdrew from the capital region and north after about six weeks to concentrate on seizing Donetsk and Luhansk, which pro-Moscow separatists have partly controlled since 2014.
Foreign minister Sergey Lavrov told state-controlled RT television and the RIA Novosti news agency in an interview published on Wednesday that Russia plans to retain control over more territory, including the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions in the south. Moscow’s current strategy also envisions making gains elsewhere, Lavrov said. His comments indicated the war could flare up rather than wind down in the weeks to come.