The head of Russian occupation authorities in Ukraine's southern Kherson region said 22 people were killed and 15 were injured in the town of Sadove in shelling by Ukrainian forces.
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The claim by Vladimir Saldo, which could not be independently verified, came after the Ukrainian military said that Russian forces had fired five missiles and dozens of drones over nine regions of Ukraine in an overnight attack. All the missiles and nearly all the drones were shot down, the Ukrainian military said on June 7.
Saldo said a shop packed with customers and employees was hit in Sadove, a town south of the city of Kherson. Residents of nearby houses ran to help the injured and within a short time a missile fired from a high-mobility artillery rocket system (HIMARS) supplied by the United States struck, TASS quoted Saldo as saying. Two children were among the dead, according to Saldo.
He said Ukrainian forces had "deliberately made a repeat strike to create greater numbers of casualties.”
The same so-called “double tap” tactic has been used by Russian forces against Ukraine, including in April in Kharkiv, killing three rescue workers who responded to the first attack.
The Russian Defense Ministry on June 7 also accused Ukrainian forces of firing five missiles from a U.S.-supplied Army Tactical Missile System, known as ATACMS, at the eastern Ukrainian city of Luhansk, which is under Russian control. The ministry said 20 people were wounded, including children. This claim also could not be independently verified.
Russian media reports citing Russian-installed officials said earlier that 22 people, including an 8-year-old child, were injured, while an unknown number of people were trapped under the rubble of a building.
Leonid Pasechnik, the top Russian-installed figure in Luhansk, said late on June 7 that the number of casualties had risen to 57, and four of the wounded had died.
Pasechnik said 33 buildings had been damaged, including two schools, three kindergartens, and the Luhansk College of Information Technologies and Entrepreneurship.
The Defense Ministry said in a statement that four of five missiles fired had been shot down. The missile that got through damaged two residential apartment blocks, the statement said, adding that there were still people under the rubble of a five-story building.
There has been no comment from Ukraine on the claims made by the Russian side. Its military said earlier that its forces shot down all five missiles and 48 out of 53 drones over nine regions during Russia’s overnight attack.
Drones and missiles were destroyed over the regions of Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhya, Kirovohrad, Mykolayiv, Kherson, Odesa, Kharkiv, Kyiv, and Khmelnytskiy, Air Force Lieutenant General Mykola Oleschuk said in a statment.
In the Kyiv region, the attack caused a fire at an industrial facility, regional Governor Ruslan Kravchenko said, adding that there had been no casualties.
Kharkiv Governor Oleh Synyehubov said the attack on the city of Kharkiv caused damage to at least three residential buildings, a store, a post office, and local infrastructure.