KHARKIV, Ukraine -- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy visited the battle-scarred northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on May 26 and issued a fresh plea for additional aid. His comments came as rescuers searched the charred wreckage of a shopping center in the city for the bodies of people killed in a Russian missile attack the previous day, which has so far claimed at least 16 lives.
Nearly four dozen people were wounded in the May 25 attack, which hit the store as scores of shoppers were visiting the Epicentr hardware supply store.
Oleh Synyehubov, the governor of the Kharkiv region, said the toll stood at 16 as of the late afternoon on May 26 amid fears it would climb higher as emergency workers used heavy equipment to pick through the debris.
At least 43 people were wounded, said Ihor Terekhov, Kharkiv’s mayor.
"The attack targeted the shopping center, where there were many people," Terekhov said in a post to Telegram. This is clearly terrorism."
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Russia Hits Hypermarket In Ukraine's Second-Biggest City
Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko, meanwhile, said 16 people were still missing after the strike.
“This blow to Kharkiv is another manifestation of Russian madness,” Zelenskiy said on Telegram on May 25 moments after the attack.
While in Kharkiv, the Ukrainian leader urged U.S. President Joe Biden and China's Xi Jinping to attend a planned peace summit in Switzerland starting on June 15.
"There is no nation that is able to stop such a war only through its own efforts. The participation of world leaders is needed,” he said in a Telegram posting.
"The efforts of the world's majority are the best guarantee of the fulfillment of obligations. Please support the peace summit with your personal leadership and involvement," Zelenskiy said in comments directed in English to Biden and Xi.
SEE ALSO: Ukraine Live Briefing: Verkhovna Rada Closes Over Strike FearsThe Russian state news agency TASS cited an unnamed security official as saying, without providing evidence, that there was a "military store and command post" inside the shopping center.
A video released by Ukraine’s national police depicted the moment of the attack on the hypermarket, showing what appeared to be workers and shoppers standing in a home-goods section of a large store.
A woman who identified herself as Svitlana told RFE/RL that she rushed to the site “because my son works here. He is an assistant in the paint department.”
When asked if she had any word from him, she responded: “No.”
Lyubov, who also only gave her first name, said: “So many colleagues [remain inside]. We looked for them. There were other people who needed help, too. But it was impossible to reach them due to the fire.”
Oleksandr Filchakov, Kharkiv's regional prosecutor, showed RFE/RL what he said was “shrapnel from the D-30 versatile intermediate gliding ammunition.”
“The Russian Federation has used it to bomb this supermarket.”
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Kharkiv Residents Deal With Aftermath Of Deadly Russian Strike On Supermarket
Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, has come under intensified missile and rocket attacks over the past month as Russia opened a new front in its offensive operations, crossing the border into Ukraine from the north.
Experts say the offensive is aimed at stretching Ukrainian forces to the breaking point and possibly putting Kharkiv within artillery range.
Overnight on May 26, Russia fired dozens of missiles and kamikaze drones at various targets in Ukraine. The Ukrainian Air Force said 12 missiles, and 31 drones had been downed by air defenses.
Also on May 25, Synyehubov said at least five people were injured in the village of Kupyansk-Vuzloviy and that an emergency vehicle had been damaged in a Russian missile strike.
Zelenskiy and other Ukrainian officials have pleaded with Western allies to step up deliveries of air defense weapons and other armaments to aid their outmanned and outgunned forces, especially in the country's northeast.
Ukrainian officials have also stepped up their calls for the United States to relax its restrictions preventing Ukrainian forces from using U.S.-supplied weaponry to more aggressively hit targets inside of Russia.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said in an interview published on May 24 in The Economist that Ukraine should be allowed to use Western-supplied weapons in strikes against military targets inside Russia.