Twelve children are among at least 43 people who have been wounded in a Russian missile strike in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, according to officials.
Prosecutors said a three-month-old baby was among the victims of the missile attack which targeted a military funeral in the northeastern Kharkiv region on Tuesday. The child’s condition was unknown.
Russian forces hit the town’s centre in the afternoon with an Iskander missile, Prosecutor General Andrii Kostin said, adding that there were no military facilities nearby, the Kyiv Independent reported.
Nine apartment buildings were reportedly damaged in the attack.
About 100 people were shown in television footage gathering at a funeral in the small town on Pervomaiskyi, some of them in uniform and some in civilian clothes.
Major Maksym Zhorin, a former commander of a fighting unit known as the Azov battalion that is now part of the Ukrainian army, said the town was hit as people gathered for the funeral of Oleh Fadeenko, a soldier with the call-sign “Baby” who he said had been killed in combat near Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine.
“They targeted the site where the ceremony was taking place,” Mr Zhorin said on the Telegram messaging app.
Television footage showed a tall residential building with smashed windows and black smoke pouring out. Mangled cars were in flames nearby, and a man sat in an ambulance with blood over his face.
Regional governor Oleh Synehubov said an Iskander missile had slammed into a residential quarter in Pervomaiskyi at 1.35pm Kyiv time (11.35am BST).
He said 43 people were injured, and five were treated at the scene.
A local resident told Reuters: “We weren’t at home, we went for a walk in the park. I don’t know what happened, I heard an explosion, probably a missile.
“I only remember that when the explosion sounded, we were thrown up into the air. Then we continued walking, we saw blown out windows everywhere, I saw cars on fire. I just can’t get a grip of myself, my legs are still shaking.”
Russia did not immediately comment on the attack.
Moscow has denied deliberately targeting civilians but its missile and drone attacks have repeatedly struck cities across Ukraine since the February 24 invasion last year.
