At least 11 people died in shelling today in Kharkiv region in North-Eastern Ukraine, which since May 10 has been subject to a new Russian offensive, local authorities announced, BTA reported.
Six people, including a pregnant woman, were killed and one is missing, while 27 people were injured when a rocket hit a recreation center on the outskirts of Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city. The missiles were fired from the neighboring Russian region of Belgorod, Ukrainian officials said.
"Among the injured are a police officer and an ambulance driver who went to help people after the first attack," explained the prosecutor's office in Kharkiv, accusing the Russians of "once again" have resorted to the deadly tactic of successive strikes.
Russia has repeatedly been criticized for carrying out twin strikes, in which an area is bombed once and then again when emergency services arrive.
Soon after, 5 civilians lost their lives and 9 were injured in repeated rocket fire on the villages of Novoosinovo and Kivcharovka, said the regional governor of Kharkiv Oblast Oleg Sinegubov.
At the same time, the authorities of the Russian Belgorod region reported that an 11-year-old girl who was playing on a playground in Belgorod was injured in an attack by a Ukrainian drone and that 11 were injured in a Ukrainian rocket attack on the city of Shebekino in the same region, and among the injured there were and three children.