Death toll reaches 12 in Russian hit on Kharkiv DIY store, fire out
Ukrainian authorities on Sunday reported that the death toll from the Russian bombing of a DIY store in the north-eastern city of Kharkiv has reached 12 people.
Ukrainian Interior Minister Ihor Kylmenko wrote on the social media platform Telegram that the number of injured in the attack has risen to 43, with 16 people still missing.
The fire that broke out after the airstrike was finally put out early on Sunday, Klymenko said, after 16 hours of work by firefighters.
Russia attacked the store with at least one glide bomb on Saturday. It later claimed Ukraine had hidden an arms depot in the store.
"The tactic of human shields is being used in Kharkiv - they [the Ukrainians] have set up a military camp and a command post in a shopping centre, which was discovered by our intelligence service," the state agency TASS quoted an unnamed representative of the Russian leadership as saying.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said around 200 people were in the Epicentr home improvement store at the time of the attack.
Zelensky described the attack as "another manifestation of Russian madness" and once again asked Ukraine's allies to supply air defence systems to protect its civilians.
Kharkiv, which lies only 30 kilometres from the Russian border, has been one of the worst-hit cities in Moscow's bombing campaign since its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
