Russia accuses Ukraine of shelling that leaves at least 25 dead in occupied east

Russia accused Ukraine of shelling the Russian-occupied territories of Kherson and Luhansk on Friday leaving at least 25 dead, local authorities said.

Russia accused Ukraine of shelling the Russian-occupied eastern territories of Kherson and Luhansk on Friday, leaving at least 25 dead. Kherson and Luhansk were among four Ukrainian territories Russia claimed to have annexed in September 2022 following its full-scale invasion. The international community, aside from North Korea and Syria, does not recognize the annexation. Vladimir Saldo, the Russia-appointed governor of the southern Kherson region, accused Ukrainian forces of killing 22 people, including a 9-year-old child, in the shelling of the small town of Sadove on Friday. Saldo claimed that Ukrainian forces did “a double-tap” missile strike on a grocery store and the civilian area in Sadove. The grocery store, he noted, was packed with customers and staff when it was hit. The first attack was carried out using a French-supplied aerial bomb and the successive one with an American-supplied HIMARS missile, he told Russia 24. Meanwhile, the Russian-appointed head of the self-declared Luhansk People’s Republic, Leonid Pasechnik, said on Telegram a Ukrainian strike on Luhansk killed three people and wounded 35 others. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called the strikes “cynical and [a] bloody crime” on Friday and blamed Washington for giving “the green light” to Kyiv “to kill civilians with Western weapons.”