President Volodymyr Zelensky has condemned a “deliberate” attack on Ukraine’s “peaceful city” of Kostyantynivka.<\/p>\n
At least 17 people, including a child, were killed in the blast, which took place on a busy market street in the middle of the day – a rarity.<\/p>\n
Kostyantynivka, in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, is near the frontline.<\/p>\n
Videos on social media show a bright orange explosion at the far end of a street where people were out shopping. Russia is yet to comment on the attack.<\/p>\n
Zelensky, who has blamed Moscow, said those killed were “people who did nothing wrong” – and warned the death toll could increase.<\/p>\n
Dealing with Russia, he said, meant turning a blind eye to the audacity of evil.<\/p>\n
At least 33 people are thought to be injured. A market, pharmacy and shops are all reported to have been hit, resulting in a now-contained fire.<\/p>\n
Footage and images circulating online appeared to show the moment of the explosion and its graphic aftermath.<\/p>\n
It was one of the worst attacks on Ukrainian civilians since the spring, and took place in a busy street at around 2pm local time as people flocked to market stalls and caf\u00e9 terraces.<\/p>\n
Ukraine’s Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said a few hours later that the search and rescue operation had been completed.<\/p>\n
Diana Khodak, a local shopkeeper, recalled the moment a “flash” of light appeared and she told colleagues and customers to “lie on the floor”.<\/p>\n
Speaking to Reuters news agency, she described seeing soldiers carrying a woman afterwards who “had an open fracture and her bone was sticking out from her leg”.<\/p>\n
Zelensky described the attack as “utter inhumanity”, while his wife Olena Zelenska said it showed “horrific cruelty”.<\/p>\n
An investigation has been launched by Ukraine’s prosecutor-general, whose office said it was in pursuit of “criminal proceedings for violation of the laws and customs of war”.<\/p>\n
“Prosecutors are taking all possible and appropriate measures to record war crimes committed by the Russian Federation,” a statement added.<\/p>\n
Officials in Russia have not yet commented on the attack. They have previously denied targeting citizens as part of their offensive.<\/p>\n
Kostyantynivka sits close to the battlefield and has been hit on various occasions this year as a result:<\/p>\n
It is also about 27 kilometres from the city of Bakhmut – in the Donetsk region as well – where fighting is known to have been intense for some time.<\/p>\n
The city of Donetsk has been controlled by Russia’s proxy authorities since 2014. They have repeatedly accused Ukrainian forces of targeting it since the war with Russia began last February.<\/p>\n
The attack on Wednesday coincided with a visit by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Ukraine, where he met Zelensky and other officials.<\/p>\n
In the hours before he arrived, sirens wailed across the country and Kyiv’s air defence system was busy intercepting missiles aimed at the capital.<\/p>\n
Blinken used the trip – his fourth to the Ukrainian capital in 18 months – to announce another US aid package for the war-torn country. It totals more than $US1 billion ($NZ1.7b), he said.<\/p>\n
Source: RNZ<\/p>\n
Photo: \u00a0Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" President Volodymyr Zelensky has condemned a “deliberate” attack on Ukraine’s “peaceful city” of Kostyantynivka. At least 17 people, including a child, were killed in the blast, which took place on a busy market street in the middle of the day – a rarity. Kostyantynivka, in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, is near the frontline. Videos on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":7718,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7717"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7719,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7717\/revisions\/7719"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}