Ukraine on Friday has accused Russia of shelling a convoy of civilian cars in the southern region of Zaporizhzhia that has claimed at least 23 lives on the front line.
The regional governor of Zaporizhzhia, Oleksandr Starukh, said the strikes had also injured 28 people, “All civilians, local people.”
As per a pro-Kremlin official in the Russian-occupied region of Zaporizhzhia accused Kyiv and denied the Russian military was behind the attack.
While accusing the Ukrainian army of carrying out a “terrorist act”, Vladimir Rogov said on social media that, “The regime in Kyiv is trying to portray what happened as shelling by Russian troops, resorting to a heinous provocation.”
The Zaporizhzhia governor added that Russian forces “launched a rocket attack on a civilian humanitarian convoy on the way out of the regional center.”
He has clearly mentioned on his social media handle that, “People were standing in line to leave for the temporarily occupied territory, to pick up their relatives and to take away aid.”
Governor Starukh also posted a photograph, showing two rows of crumpled cars and several corpses lying nearby.
The industrial hub of Zaporizhzhia, with a pre-war population of 700,000, is under Ukrainian control but subject to Russian rocket attacks.
At the same time, part of the region is occupied by Russia and the Kremlin has said it plans to formally annex the region at a ceremony in Moscow on Friday.
Separately, a Moscow-installed official in Kherson, a southern region of Ukraine controlled by Russia, was killed in strikes by Kyiv’s forces, Russia’s state-run news agency cited local officials as saying Friday.
While referring to the United States-supplied weapons systems, the deputy head of the Moscow-controlled region, Kirill Stremousov, said that, “Alexei Katerinichev died because of a pinpoint strike from HIMARS. Two(2) rockets hit the house in which he was.”