Civilians killed in another Ukrainian strike HIMARS – governor – RT Russia and the former Soviet Union
The US-made weapons system was used in an attack that left four people dead in Russia’s Zaporozhye region, Evgeny Balitsky said.
Ukrainian forces shelled a railway bridge near the town of Melitopol in Russia’s Zaporozhye region, acting governor Evgeny Balitsky said on Sunday. A US-made HIMARS multiple rocket launcher was used in the attack, which killed four civilians and injured five others, he added.
At the time of the attack, repairs were underway on the bridge, Balitsky noted in a Telegram post. All of those killed and injured in the strike were service technicians involved in repairs, the official said.
“Kyiv authorities deliberately targeted an object of civilian infrastructure, committing another crime against civilians,” Balitsky said, adding that all those injured were receiving necessary medical assistance.
The attack came just a day after Ukrainian troops hit a civilian hospital in the Lugansk People’s Republic. The strike, which also involved a HIMARS system, killed 14 people and injured 24.
The Russian Defense Ministry has called for a strike on the hospital a “absolutely serious war crime”. Moscow’s first deputy permanent representative to the UN, Dmitry Polyansky, accused the United States of being directly involved in the attack by supplying Ukrainian forces with weapons, ammunition and reconnaissance data.
Moscow has repeatedly accused Ukrainian forces of targeting civilian infrastructure, including with weapons supplied by the West. In early January, six people were killed and 37 injured in a strike against the town of Vasilyevka in the Zaporozhye region. Previously, a hospital had been destroyed in the town of Tokmak, in the same region.
The Zaporozhye region was incorporated into the Russian state in early October along with the Kherson region and the people’s republics of Donetsk and Lugansk following referendums in which the populations of these territories overwhelmingly supported joining Russia .
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