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.
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 (14:20 GMT) when the area was busy with people out shopping.
Situated 20km (12 miles) 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.
Meanwhile, Moscow’s Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said Russia’s defence ministry had shot down three drones flying towards the capital in the early hours of Thursday morning.
He said emergency service were working at the site of the wreckage but he did not mention casualties. Ukraine has not commented on the strikes.
It comes after US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that Ukraine should not target Moscow with strikes, after the Financial Times reported that Trump on 4 July had privately encouraged Ukraine to escalate attacks on Russia.
Russia has escalated its drone and missile strikes 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.
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, 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 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.”