At least two people have been killed and a further 27 injured following a Russian air strike on a shopping centre and market in the town of Dobropillia in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, officials have said.
More than 50 shops, 300 apartments and eight cars were damaged in the attack on Wednesday evening, regional governor Vadym Filashkin said on Telegram.
Speaking in his nightly address, President Volodymyr Zelensky described the strike as “simply horrific” and said there was “no military logic” to it. Russia has not commented.
It comes as the US special envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, is in Kyiv on a week-long trip to discuss US-Ukrainian co-operation with Zelensky.
“The Russians have again deliberately targeted an area where there are lots of people – a shopping centre in the middle of town,” governor Filashkin wrote on Telegram on Wednesday.
“This time with a 500-kg (1,100-pound) air bomb.”
Filashkin said the bomb had been dropped at 17.20 local time when the area was busy with people out shopping.
He said a search and rescue operation was ongoing, with rescuers working to extinguish fires and find people beneath the rubble.
Situated 20km from the frontline, and north-east of the city of Pokrovsk – a focal point of Russia’s slow advance through the Donetsk region – Dobropillia has been subject to other attacks since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
In March, a rocket, drone and missile attack killed 11 people in the town, including five children.
Russia has escalated its drone and missile attacks across Ukraine in recent weeks, killing more than 230 civilians in June, according to the United Nations – the largest number killed in a month during the three years of war.
US President Donald Trump has been growing increasingly frustrated that his efforts to end the war have not amounted to a ceasefire or a significant breakthrough.
Following a meeting with Nato chief Mark Rutte in Washington on Monday, President Trump said he was “disappointed” with Vladimir Putin and the fact that his “very nice phone calls” with the Russian president are often followed by air strikes on Ukraine.
“After that happens three or four times you say: the talk doesn’t mean anything,” Trump said.
He warned that he would impose severe sanctions on Moscow if a peace deal was not reached within 50 days.
The US president also announced that the US would send “top-of-the-line weapons” to Kyiv via Nato countries to ensure “Ukraine can do what it wants to do”.
