Russian missile strike kills 17 in Ukraine market attack during Blinken visit
Barnini Chakraborty
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At least 17 people are dead and another 32 injured following a Russian missile strike in the Ukrainian city of Kostiantynivka just hours after United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Kyiv for an unannounced visit on Wednesday.
The attack on the eastern Ukrainian city close to the front lines is one of the deadliest in months and hit an outdoor market, President Volodymyr Zelensky and other officials said.
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The attack took place around 2 p.m. local time, and a child was among those who were killed.
“A regular market. Shops. A pharmacy. People who did nothing wrong,” Zelensky said in a post on Telegram, a messaging app. He added that the number of casualties may rise.
Footage of the attack posted online showed some people falling to the ground while others ran for cover following the explosion, just moments after some were recorded looking up at the sky.
Reporters from the Associated Press who were at the site of the attack in the Donetsk region reported seeing covered bodies on the ground and emergency workers extinguishing fires at market stalls as well as mangled cars.
The attack on civilians comes as Blinken was expected to announce more than $1 billion in new American aid to the war-torn country that has been bruised but not beaten by Russian forces. Blinken’s visit is one of the highest-level visits by a U.S. official to the capital since President Joe Biden’s February trip.
The newest aid package to the Eastern European country includes financial and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine, which has been locked in a deadly war with its neighbor for more than a year with no end in sight. A State Department official said the U.S. would continue to provide Ukraine with weapons for a counteroffensive launched three months ago to breach Russian minefields.
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“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,” Blinken, who met with Zelensky, told reporters.
The United States is the West’s largest donor to Ukraine.