A "massive" Russian strike killed 21 people and wounded 48 others in the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson on Wednesday, including a train station and a supermarket, according to a new report.
ADVERTISEMENTA "massive" Russian strike killed 21 people and wounded 48 others in the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson on Wednesday, including a train station and a supermarket, according to a new report.
"At the moment, 21 people have been killed and 48 injured! In less than a day! In one region alone!" wrote President Volodymyr Zelensky on Telegram.
An earlier report by the Ukrainian presidency put the death toll at 18 and the number of injured at 46, and said the attacks were continuing.
"A railway station and a crossroads, a building, a tool shop, a supermarket and a petrol station: do you know what these places have in common? The bloody trail that Russia is leaving with its shells, killing civilians in Kherson and the region," wrote the Ukrainian president, who was in Finland on Wednesday.
"The world must see and know," he added. "We will never forgive. We will overcome (...) and all perpetrators will be held accountable," he wrote.
The authorities had previously said that strikes on a supermarket and railway station in the town of Kherson had killed at least four people and wounded several others, and that another bombing had killed three people working to repair an energy site.
According to the head of the local military administration, Oleksander Prokudin, Kherson was during the day "still under Russian artillery fire".
58-hour curfew
The city, occupied for several months in 2022 by Moscow's troops, was liberated last November after a successful counter-offensive by Kyiv in the region.
Since then, Kherson has come under regular shelling as the Russian army retreated across the Dnieper River.
Prokudin also announced a curfew in Kherson on Wednesday, starting Friday night and lasting 58 hours, at a time when Kyiv said it was preparing to launch a major counter-offensive.
"From 20:00 on 5 May, a curfew will be put in place in Kherson, and it will last until 06:00 on 8 May," he said earlier in the day.
"During these 58 hours, it will be forbidden to move around and be in the city streets, and Kherson will also be closed for entry and exit," he added.
Prokudin justified these "temporary restrictions" by "the need" for "law enforcement agencies to be able to do their work".
The authorities' announcement comes as Kyiv said its preparations for a major counter-offensive to retake Russian-occupied territory in the east and south "are coming to an end".