CNN
—
Russian forces killed 18 people, including a 12-year-old girl, in a weekend attack on a megastore in Kharkiv, regional authorities said, in the deadliest attack Ukraine has seen in recent weeks.
Five people were still missing, Kharkiv region military governor Oleh Shniekhbov said on Monday. He said 48 people were wounded in the attack on the Epicentre hypermarket shopping center building, among about 200 people inside.
Ukraine's second-largest city, Kharkiv, which borders Russia, has come under attack from Russia in recent weeks.
Security camera footage showed the building shaking at the moment of impact and the entire building quickly engulfed in thick smoke and flames. Police and witnesses said there were at least two explosions.
Oleksandr Lutsenko, director of the Epicenter shopping centre, said he was in his office on the second floor when the two explosions happened.
“I started walking down the hallway to the emergency exit and it was dark and the whole hallway was covered in dust. There was no air to breathe,” he told CNN by phone.
“The employees were leaving too. Everyone was groping each other, hugging each other. We heard the ceiling falling.”
When they went outside, they saw a large supermarket on fire. “Black smoke was rising everywhere, it was hard to breathe. People were jumping out of the windows,” Lutsenko added.
Ukraine's Interior Minister Igor Klymenko said the hours after the attack were “like hell” and thanked everyone who helped put out the fire. Pictures from inside the store after the attack showed the complete destruction of the building, with burnt inventory and collapsed walls.
Kostyantyn Liberov/Libkos/Getty Images
Emergency workers remove the bodies of victims of a Russian military attack on a megastore in Kharkiv.
The Ukrainian Catholic University identified the 12-year-old girl as Maria Mironenko and said in a Facebook post that she was killed in the airstrike along with her mother, Irina, who was also a student at the university. Her father was also wounded and was being treated in hospital.
Serhiy Borbinov, head of investigations for the Kharkiv regional police, said the family had been out shopping when the two bombs fell. Maria's older sister Nadia, 20, was not with the family at the time and only found out about their deaths when she found her father in the hospital.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned the attack as a “brutal aggression” and said Russia was “run by people who want to normalize the burning of lives through war, the destruction of cities and villages, the division of peoples and the erasure of borders.”
During an official visit to Spain on Monday, President Zelensky called on Ukraine's ally to strengthen its air defenses.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez met with President Zelensky in Madrid on Monday to announce a new $1.08 billion arms deal for Ukraine, aimed at “strengthening air defense systems” and protecting Ukrainian people and infrastructure from Russian attacks.
“We're sending Patriot missiles,” Sanchez said of the American-made air defense systems. “Zelenskiy is asking for a platform to launch them and how many we can provide. We're sending a new batch of Leopard tanks and, above all, [Ukrainian] The military needs it.”
Zelensky was due to visit Spain earlier this month but postponed the trip due to Russia's attacks on Kharkiv and other parts of Ukraine, which appear to be continuing, with Kharkiv coming under increasing attack every day.
The United States announced on Friday that it would send $275 million in military aid to Ukraine as part of “efforts to help Ukraine repel Russian aggression near Kharkiv,” according to Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
A top U.S. diplomat said the new aid “includes urgently needed capabilities” for Ukrainian forces as they fight to halt a Russian advance on key cities in the northeast.
News of the new military aid comes after the Ukrainian Defense Ministry downplayed expectations that French military trainees would soon arrive in Ukraine, after online comments from Army Commander Oleksandr Shirsky appeared to suggest their arrival was a given.
“I welcome the initiative by France to send instructors to Ukraine to train Ukrainian soldiers,” Shirsky wrote in Telegram after a video conference between him and the defense ministers of the two countries. “I have already signed a document allowing the first French instructors to visit our training centers and get to know our infrastructure and personnel.”
While Mr. Shirsky's statement did not give a specific time frame, it seemed to suggest that France was ready to make a very significant shift regarding NATO countries' involvement in the Ukraine war with Russia.
Shirsky further raised that awareness, writing, “I believe that France's determination will encourage other partners to join this ambitious project. I would like to thank the Minister for the friendly support of the French people and for their military and economic support to Ukraine in repelling Russian military aggression.”
Ukraine's Defense Ministry later softened its language, telling CNN in an apparent attempt to lower expectations and perhaps appease a key ally, that since the Paris meeting in late February, Kiev has “expressed interest in the possible acceptance of foreign instructors in Ukraine.”
“We continue to consult with France and other countries on this issue and have begun the internal paperwork to move forward once a decision has been made,” the short statement concluded.
The French Ministry of Defense, in comments to CNN, conveyed a similar message about military trainers.
“As with all projects discussed at the conference, we continue to work with the Ukrainian people to understand their exact needs,” the statement said.
Speaking at a conference in Paris, French President Emmanuel Macron floated the idea that sending military trainers to Ukraine could be one way for Kyiv's Western allies to send troops to the country.
Additional reporting by Viktoria Butenko and Daria Tarasova-Markina in Kyiv and Xiaofei Xu in Paris
