A RUSSIAN strike killed more than a dozen people, including a child, in a market in the frontline in east Ukraine, in an attack that President Volodymyr Zelensky described as “heinous evil”.
The projectiles ripped into the centre of Kostiantynivka, a town of nearly 70,000 people in the Donetsk region hours after America’s top diplomat arrived in Kyiv to announce new aid.
Ukraine’s newly appointed defence minister meanwhile vowed to liberate “every centimetre” of territory occupied by Russia in his first comments in the post Wednesday.
Rescue workers picked through the debris and carried some of the nearly 30 wounded for treatment past charred vehicles and kiosks torn to pieces in the blast, according to images distributed by officials.
“Sixteen people have been killed, including one child,” Prime Minister Denys Shmygal said on social media following the strike in the market about 20 kilometres (12 miles) from the front line.
The industrial Donetsk region has been partially controlled by Kremlin-backed separatists since 2014 and Russia claimed to have annexed in late last year.
“Anyone in the world who is still dealing with anything Russian simply ignores this reality. Heinous evil. Brazen wickedness. Utter inhumanity,” Zelensky said.
The attack came as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visited Ukraine, with Washington set to unveil more than $1 billion in fresh aid to battle Russia.
During a meeting with Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, Blinken reiterated Washington’s support for Kyiv in its fight to liberate territory in the south and east.
“We want to make sure that Ukraine has what it needs, not only to succeed in the counteroffensive, but has what it needs for the long term, to make sure that it has a strong deterrent,” he told Kuleba.
Blinken is expected to announce “more than a billion dollars in new US funding for Ukraine,” according to a senior State Department official.
The Kremlin dismissed Blinken’s Kyiv visit, arguing US aid would not “influence the course of the special military operation” — Moscow’s term for its offensive.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov accused Washington of wanting to “keep Ukraine in a state of war, to wage this war till the last Ukrainian”.