Six dead in market attack as Ukraine remembers war dead
Six people have lost their lives in a local market area in Kherson, a southern Ukrainian city.
Regional authorities reported that the Russian shelling occurred around 09:00 local time (06:00 GMT), coinciding with a nationwide moment of remembrance for war casualties.
“Defenders Day,” celebrated annually, honors the armed forces.
According to the region’s prosecutor’s office, the shelling, which struck near a local market and bus stop, was likely conducted using Russian “barrel artillery.”
Local media captured an image showing a body on the pavement next to boxes of fruit.
Moscow has consistently denied targeting civilians.
Initial reports indicated seven fatalities; however, doctors managed to save one individual initially believed to be dead.
Kherson was seized by Russian forces shortly after the invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022 and was liberated by Ukrainian troops in November. The city remains very close to the frontline, with intense fighting occurring on the opposite side of the Dnipro River.
At 08:55 on Tuesday, people in Kyiv and across Ukraine observed a 10-minute silence for Defenders Day. A small crowd gathered at a memorial site in Maidan Square, where thousands of Ukrainian flags and framed pictures of fallen soldiers have been displayed since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Halyna’s 29 year old son, Kostyantyn, was killed fighting in the Kherson region in July 2022.
“He was a platoon leader, a junior lieutenant,” Halyna told the BBC, clinging on to a photo of him, holding back tears.
“He was a very nice guy. His comrades came recently and told how he fought and how he died. It’s very hard for me.”
As the silence began, we watched as cars stopped in the middle of a busy road and people stood solemnly in the streets in a moment that felt charged with emotion, sorrow and intense national pride.
Soon, the sound of the Ukrainian national anthem could be heard echoing through the still streets.
It was at around that time that the strike on Kherson city took place in southern Ukraine.
Separately, 21 people have reportedly been wounded due to Russian glide bombs hitting residential and industrial areas in the city of Zaporizhzhia.
On the front line in Ukraine’s east, Russian troops continue to press hard and Donetsk regional head Vadym Filashkin has said they have almost reached the centre of the town of Vuhledar.
Just 107 people are said to remain in the bombed out town with children already evacuated and humanitarian aid “almost impossible” to deliver – according to Filashkin.
As part of Defenders Day, President Volodymyr Zelensky paid tribute to those who had been killed in the fighting, saying: “You sacrifice yourselves so that Ukraine does not have to be sacrificed.”
Yuliya’s partner, Bogdan, served as an army medic treating people during the devastating siege of Mariupol before he was captured by Russian troops.
“I have a daughter, she’s five years old so I think she helps me a lot because she’s my sense now to live. I need to be strong. And I need to be now a mother and a father in one person.”
Bogdan was one of dozens who died in the July 2022 explosion at Olenivka prison, which Kyiv believes was a deliberate attempt by Russia to destroy evidence of war crimes although Moscow blamed Ukrainian missiles.
For countless Ukrainian families, remembrance is a private act, as well as a public one.
Yuliya says she wants to her daughter to remember her father: “What he did for us and everything we have now is because of him. He was protecting us.”
