KYIV (Reuters) – A Russian missile slammed into an “invincibility point” set up to offer refuge for Ukrainian civilians, killing at least three women, local officials said on Friday.
Four other civilians were also killed during the night, local officials said. The dead included two people killed in heavy Russian shelling of the Sumy region on northern Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s office said.
The invincibility point that was hit overnight in the city of Kostiantynivka in the eastern Donetsk region was one of many such shelters created by authorities across Ukraine to provide access to electricity, heating, water and other basic services.
Photographs released by emergency services from Kostiantynivka showed the heavily damaged remains of the one-storey invincibility point surrounded by rubble. A mattress protruded from the debris.
One of the three dead women came from the Bakhmut area, scene of some of the heaviest fighting of Russia’s war on Ukraine, the emergency services said, adding that two men were also hurt.
“Rescuers removed the bodies of three dead women from the rubble,” they said on the Telegram messaging app. One person was pulled out of the rubble alive, they said.
In the Sumy region, an administrative building, a school building, and residential buildings were among those damaged, Zelenskiy’s office said.
The air force said several towns and villages in the Sumy region had come under fire from missiles, drones and other weapons.
Two other deaths were reported by local officials in Chasiv Yar in eastern Ukraine and in the southern region of Kherson.
Russia, which launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine 13 months ago, did not comment on the latest attacks. Reuters was not immediately able to verify the reports.
(Reporting by Olena Harmash, Editing by Timothy Heritage)
