A woman looks at a trolleybus damaged by Russian shelling at Barabashovo market in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Photo / AP
A woman looks at a trolleybus damaged by Russian shelling at Barabashovo market in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Photo / AP
Emergency workers recovered three bodies from a school hit by a Russian strike in eastern Ukraine, officials said on Friday, one of a string of attacks on the nation.
The casualties in the city of Kramatorsk followed a barrage on Thursday on a densely populated area of Ukraine's second-largest city, Kharkiv, that killed at least three people and wounded 23.
In the most significant agreement involving the warring parties so far, Russian and Ukrainian officials signed deals with the United Nations and Turkey to avert a global food crisis by clearing the way for the shipment of millions of tons of Ukrainian grain and some Russian exports of grain and fertiliser. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address the deals offer "a chance to prevent a global catastrophe – a famine that could lead to political chaos in many countries of the world, in particular in the countries that help us".
A paramedic assists an injured man in an ambulance after a Russian attack at Barabashovo market in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Photo / AP
Yet the war that has blocked those grain shipments for almost five months did not abate. Russia this week reiterated its plans to seize territories beyond eastern Ukraine, where the Russian military has been trying to conquer the Donbas region, comprising the Donetsk and Luhansk provinces.
The Ukrainian president's office said that in one Donbas city, Kramatorsk, Russian shelling destroyed a school and damaged 85 residential buildings. Ukraine's state emergencies agency said rescuers found three bodies in the ruins of the school, which was hit on Thursday.
"Russian strikes on schools and hospitals are very painful and reflect its true goal of reducing peaceful cities to ruins," Donetsk Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said, repeating his call for residents to evacuate.
A woman cries after her husband was killed by Russian shelling at Barabashovo market in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Photo / AP
Russia gave a different account of the attack. Defence Ministry spokesman Lieutenant General Igor Konashenkov said Thursday's strike killed more than 300 Ukrainian troops using Kramatorsk's School No. 23 as their base. He said another strike destroyed a munitions depot in the southern city of Mykolaiv.
Konashenkov also said Russian forces destroyed four US-supplied High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems between July 5-20. The US said it has supplied 12 of the multiple-rocket launchers to Ukraine. The claims could not be independently verified.
A senior US defence official said on Thursday that Russia had not yet taken out a single HIMARS but was likely to "get lucky" and do so at some point.
The US announced on Friday that as part of a new US$270 million ($430m) security assistance package, it will deliver four more HIMARS to Ukraine. The package will allow Kyiv to acquire up to 580 Phoenix Ghost drones, about 36,000 rounds of artillery ammunition and more guided rockets known as GMLRS.
Ukrainian forces have used US-made rocket launchers and tactical drones to hold at bay Russia's larger and more heavily equipped forces. The Ukrainian military has used HIMARS, which have a higher range and better precision compared with similar Soviet-era systems in the Russian and Ukrainian inventory, to strike Russian munitions depots and other key targets.
Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu (left) with his Turkish counterpart Hulusi Akar at a meeting in Istanbul, Turkey. Photo / AP
In the Dnipro region of central Ukraine, three schools were destroyed in the latest Russian strikes, Ukrainian authorities said. Seven Russian missiles hit the small town of Apostolove, wounding 18 residents.
The regional governor, Valentyn Reznichenko, decried the "senseless" attack.
"There are no military goals behind it, and this shelling could only be explained by their desire to keep people on edge and sow panic and fear," Reznichenko said.
• Nomaan Merchant in Washington contributed to this report.
