ZAPORIJJIA, Ukraine (Reuters) – At least 25 people were killed and 50 others injured on Friday when a Russian missile fired at a convoy of civilian vehicles on the outskirts of Zaporizhya in southern Ukraine, the regional governor said.
A Reuters reporter on the spot saw corpses lying on the ground or in vehicles at the large car market in Orekhovo. A missile left a crater in the ground near two lines of vehicles.
“The enemy is enraged and seeks revenge for our determination and failures. He is cynically destroying peaceful Ukrainians because he lost all humanity long ago,” President Volodimir Zelensky wrote on the messaging app. Telegram.
A total of 25 people were killed and 50 injured, said Andriy Yermak, chief of staff to Volodimir Zelensky, in what he described as an attack by a “terrorist state”.
The head of the Zaporizhia police demining unit, Colonel Sergue Ouzhryumova, told Reuters the target had been hit by three S300 missiles.
Amid clouds of dust, one could make out vehicles, mostly cars and three vans, damaged by shrapnel and broken windows. They were filled with suitcases, blankets and other belongings belonging to their occupants.
In a yellow car, you could see a corpse sitting on the driver’s seat, leaning towards the passenger seat, his left hand still clinging to the steering wheel.
In the green car just ahead, the bodies of a woman and a young man were wrapped in plastic. A dead cat lay near the corpse of the young man in the back.
Still ahead, two corpses lay in a small white van with shattered windows and sides strewn with missile shrapnel.
A woman calling herself Nataliya said she had come to visit her children with her husband Zaporizhya.
“We are going back to my mother who is 90. We were spared. It’s a miracle,” she said, standing by her car with her husband.
Russia, which has invaded Ukraine in what it calls a “special military operation”, must deliberately target civilians. His offensive nevertheless destroyed, at least partially, many towns and villages.
Vladimir Rogov, an official in the administration installed by Russia in the Zaporizhia region, blamed the attack on Ukrainian forces.
(Report Jonathan Landay, with Aleksandar Vasovic, French version Bertrand Boucey, Alize Degorce, told by Matthieu Protard and Kate Entringer)
by Jonathan Landay