Russian missile kills two women at market in east Ukraine

A Russian missile slammed into a village market in east Ukraine on Monday, killing two women and wounding four others including a 10-year-old girl, regional prosecutors said.

Footage posed by public broadcaster Suspilne on the Telegram messaging app showed rescue workers sifting through large piles of rubble, burning debris and a large crater in Shevchenkove, about 80 km (50 miles) southeast of the city of Kharkiv.

A photograph posted online by the Ukrainian president's office showed rescuers trying to pull out a woman in a thick winter coat. Her head and arms poked out from under the rubble but it was not clear whether she was alive.

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"The Russian army committed another act of terror against the civilian population — a child was wounded, two women were killed," the regional prosecutor's office said. "An enemy missile hit the territory of the local market."

It said in a written statement that it had opened an investigation into a potential war crime, citing preliminary information that the attack came from an S-300 air defence system in Russia's Belgorod region bordering Ukraine.

Reuters could not immediately verify the reports. Russia, which invaded Ukraine more than 10 months ago, did not immediately comment on the reports from Shevchenkove, which Ukraine retook in September after months of Russian occupation.

Criticising Russia over the attack, Andriy Yermak, head of the Ukrainian presidential administration, wrote on Telegram: "Common terrorists."

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Oleh Synehubov, the Kharkiv region's governor, wrote on Telegram that a 60-year-old woman had been killed and the other victims were being treated in hospital.

The prosecutors gave no details of the others victims except to say that all were female and one was aged 10.

Suspilne quoted a local official as saying at least three pavilions were destroyed in the attack and that a shopping centre was damaged, but that Monday was not a market day.