MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia accused Ukraine on Friday of carrying out a missile strike on a supermarket in the Russian-controlled city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine.
There were conflicting reports about casualties: local officials said up to four people had been wounded, while state news agency RIA quoted investigators as saying two people had been killed and two others wounded in a “targeted missile strike on civilian infrastructure”.
Denis Pushilin, who heads the parts of Donetsk region controlled by Russia, accused the Ukrainian army of firing U.S.-supplied HIMARS missiles into the area during the morning rush hour.
Ukraine’s general staff, in a statement, did not refer to the supermarket incident but said it had conducted strikes this week in the Donetsk region and had taken all necessary measures to limit the risk to civilians.
The strike smashed the facade of the two-storey “Moloko” (Milk) supermarket, leaving shattered glass all around and burnt-out cars nearby.
Dashcam footage posted by a driver nearby appeared to show the moment the store was hit, triggering a large explosion and sending flames soaring into the sky.
Pushilin said in a statement on his official Telegram account that an apartment building in the city of Svitlodarsk in the Donetsk region had also been struck by Ukrainian forces, killing one woman and wounding four others.
The Ukrainian statement said Kyiv’s forces had conducted a precise strike on a Russian command post in Svitlodarsk.
Both sides say they do not target civilians in the war, now nearing the end of its third year. But thousands have been killed, the overwhelming majority of them Ukrainians.
(Additional reporting by Yuliia Dysa; Writing by Andrew Osborn, Mark Trevelyan and Anastasia Teterevleva; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Frances Kerry)
