Zelenskyy says Russia will be ‘held accountable for this terror’ as Ukrainian troops push on with Kursk assault.
Ukrainian authorities have said a Russian missile slammed into a supermarket in the eastern town of Kostiantynivka, killing at least 14 people and injuring 43, as Ukraine’s forces push on with their incursion into Russia’s Kursk region.
The shopping centre in the eastern province of Donetsk was struck by a plane-launched missile on Friday, hitting the location in the middle of the day. Photos of the aftermath showed the market in smouldering ruins.
“This is another targeted attack on a crowded place, another act of terror by the Russians,” Donetsk regional head Vadym Filashkin said in a Telegram post.
Friday’s attack is the second of its kind in the town over the last year, with 17 killed when a Russian missile hit an outdoor market last September.
In a post on Telegram, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia would be “held accountable for this terror”.
UN’s Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU) said in a statement that July was the deadliest month for Ukrainian civilians since October 2022, as Russia stepped up bombardments.
“The high number of casualties in July continued an alarming trend of increasing civilian casualties since March 2024,” an HRMMU statement said.
Meanwhile, Russian authorities declared a “federal-level” state of emergency in the region of Kursk, four days after Ukrainian forces launched what appears to be their largest cross-border attack on Russian territory since the war began.
The RIA-Novosti news agency reported that reinforcements were being sent to counter the Ukrainian incursion, including rocket launchers, artillery, and tanks, citing the Ministry of Defence.
“The operational situation in the Kursk region remains difficult,” Kursk acting governor Alexei Smirnov said on Telegram. Russian authorities have said that about 3,000 people have been evacuated due to the fighting.
Ukraine’s objectives in the raid are not clear, but Myhailo Podolyak, a top adviser to Zelenskyy, said on Thursday that it would force Russians to confront the reality that “the war is slowly creeping inside of Russian territory”.
The US Department of Defense said on Friday that the raid was “consistent” with US policy, which discourages Ukrainian attacks deep into Russian territory out of concern that such acts could escalate the conflict.
Marina Miron, a military analyst from London’s King’s College, called the Ukrainian campaign a “slap to Russia’s face”.
“It has to be stopped from an information point of view in order to show that Russia can indeed defend its borders,” Miron told Al Jazeera.
The Ukrainian military intelligence agency also stated that Ukrainian special forces carried out a raid on Russian-occupied Kinburn Spit on the Black Sea on Friday, destroying six armoured vehicles.
Peter Zalmayev, executive director of Eurasia Democracy Initiative, said this is the first time a sovereign foreign power has crossed into Russian borders in active military combat since the end of the second world war.
Zalmayev told Al Jazeera that the Ukrainian offensive could be aimed at pulling away Russian forces from the Donbas front lines, and to instil fear in the hearts and minds of Russian soldiers fighting in the area.
“Also, the aim is to expose the regime of Vladimir Putin as a colossus on clay feet, so to speak, to show to his elites that he is not as strong as he seems to be,” he said.