6 Killed in Apparent Russian Strike on Kherson Market

An apparent Russian artillery strike hit a market in the southern Ukraine city of Kherson on Tuesday, killing at least six people and wounding three others, authorities said, on a morning when Ukrainians across the country were observing a minute’s silence for their military and war dead.

The strike happened as shoppers made their way between stalls at the city center market, regional Gov. Oleksandr Prokudin said.

He published a video showing the blurred corpses of people in civilian clothes lying near a stall with tomatoes and other vegetables.

Ukraine’s General Prosecutor’s Office said the strike was “most likely” carried out by Russian artillery and hit close to a public transport stop.

The city has not recently been a hotspot in the war, now deep into its third year, as the fiercest battles have been taking place in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region where Russia’s army is pushing hard to take ground ahead of the winter.

Ukrainian forces have struck back with an incursion into Russia’s Kursk border region, but the government is waiting to hear what further Western military and financial support it can count on.

The Kherson region was one of four, also including Donetsk, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia, that Moscow illegally annexed in September 2022 and is partly occupying. Russian President Vladimir Putin wants Ukraine to withdraw completely from those regions. Ukraine refuses.

Kherson fell into Russian hands after Moscow’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. A Ukrainian counteroffensive recaptured western areas of the Kherson region, including the regional capital of the same name, nine months later.

The market attack came on the same morning as Ukraine celebrated Defenders’ Day, an annual public holiday that honors the country’s armed forces, veterans and war dead.

Across Ukraine, traffic stopped and people on sidewalks came to a halt at 9 a.m. to commemorate those defending Ukraine and those who have sacrificed their lives for the country.

The holiday was established in 2014 and first celebrated in 2015, following Russia’s annexation of Crimea and occupation of parts of the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine.

Though no official or reliable statistics are available, tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians are believed to have died fighting Russia over the past 10 years.