Kiev, Sept 20, (dpa/GNA) – The death toll in Tuesday’s Russian airstrike on the city of Kupyansk in north-eastern Ukraine has risen from six to eight, local authorities said.
According to the military chief of the north-eastern Kharkiv region, Oleh Synegubov, the Russian cruise missile destroyed three cars in which the civilians were sitting.
Two of the dead were said to be evacuation volunteers, he said on Wednesday.
Kupyansk is about 50 kilometres from the Russian border. After the invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, the city was first occupied by Russians, and then liberated by Ukraine six months later.
Russian forces struck the city with a Grom-E1 missile, Synegubov said.
The missile is a novel hybrid between a guided aerial bomb and a cruise missile. The range of the satellite-guided weapon is 120 kilometres, according to reports.
Faced with fierce fighting in the area, Ukrainian authorities ordered the evacuation of 37 localities in the Kharkiv region last August.
GNA