6 Ukrainians killed by Russian rocket as Putin justifies war

A barrage of Russian rockets rained down on the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson Tuesday, killing six people as Vladimir Putin delivered a deranged speech justifying the conflict and blaming the West.

Ukrainian officials said the rocket attack also injured 12 people, leaving pools of blood on the ground next to a destroyed bus stop.

Among the surviving victims was a 16-year-old girl who suffered shrapnel wounds to her face and limbs, a woman injured by ammunition fire in her home and two people who were hurt in a parking lot, the Kherson Regional State Administration said.

The explosion in the center of the city also decimated multiple storefronts, took down powerlines and shattered windows on the opposite side of the street.

Photos shared on social media by President Volodymyr Zelensky showed the victims’ lifeless bodies lying in the street surrounded by debris.

“This time of day it’s very crowded here so there are probably many casualties,” a woman named Viktoria, who was waiting for a bus, told Reuters.

“It’s really scary. They also shoot where we live.”

Local authorities said Kherson came under fire from multiple rocket launchers as the Russian strongman delivered a state-of-the-nation address describing Ukraine’s Western allies as the true aggressors.

Putin sought to justify the war, saying it had been forced on Russia by the West.

“We aren’t fighting the Ukrainian people,” Putin said. “The Ukrainian people have become hostages of the Kyiv regime and its Western masters, which have effectively occupied the country.”

He added: “They intend to transform a local conflict into a phase of global confrontation. This is exactly how we understand it all and we will react accordingly because in this case, we are talking about the existence of our country.”

Oleksandr Prokudin, head of Kherson region’s military administration, said there were around 20 explosions in the city, likely caused by Moscow’s Grad-style rockets.

Russia did not comment on Tuesday’s attack.

Moscow has denied deliberately targeting civilians, but cities across Ukraine have been devastated in missile and drone attacks, and thousands of civilians have been killed.

“The Russian army is heavily shelling Kherson. Again mercilessly killing the civilian population,” Zelensky wrote on his Telegram channel. “The world has no right to forget for a single moment that Russian cruelty and aggression know no bounds.”

Ukraine recaptured Kherson in November after eight months of Russian occupation, forcing Russian troops to withdraw from the only regional capital they had captured since invading Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.

Kherson and surrounding areas are now under almost constant bombardment from Russian forces on the opposite side of the Dnipro River.

With Post wires