Sawt Falasteen - Ukraine says Russian strike kills 10 in northeast region

The strike comes amid a surge in civilian deaths in the four-and-a-half-year war.

Russian forces "carried out a rocket strike on Pechenigy", a village around 40 kilometres (25 miles) from the Russian border, Kharkiv regional governor Oleg Synegubov said on social media.

"According to preliminary information, 10 people were killed," he added, with 18 people wounded.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on social media that the strike hit a busy intersection, "a location with a post office and stores, surrounded only by residential buildings".

An AFP journalist at the site saw bodies of the victims covered with emergency blankets and rescuers working amid destroyed buildings, smouldering rubble and cars reduced by fire to charred shells.

"We will definitely respond to this Russian strike. And it is equally important that our partners also complement our... responses with their own actions to put pressure on Russia and support Ukraine," Zelensky said.

Yana Chelombytko, a local resident and owner of a cafe that was destroyed in the attack, recounted that she had heard a whistle right before the strike and "the windows flew out".

"There's nothing left. It's horrible. I didn't think that to such an extent they could ... cause such damage. Terrible," she said.

The Kharkiv region -- parts of which are occupied by Russian forces -- has been hit hard since Moscow invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

According to the United Nations, more civilians have been killed in the war in recent months than in any period since the start of the invasion.

H.Darwish--SF-PST