July 25 (Reuters) – Twelve people were killed, including five children, in an overnight drone attack on a holiday camp in a Russian-held part of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, Russian-installed local authorities said on Saturday, accusing Ukraine of deliberately attacking civilians.
Kyiv did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Both Russia and Ukraine deny targeting civilians in the war launched by Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Nineteen people were wounded in the attack on the resort area of Kyrylivka, located on the coast of the Sea of Azov near the town of Melitopol, said Russian-appointed governor Yevgeny Balitsky.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said Ukrainian drones carried out the attack on “sleeping people” at the camp. She denounced “inhuman crimes”, also referring to an attack on a factory in Russia’s Kirov region on Thursday which killed six people.
A video posted online of the holiday camp showed shattered buildings, burned-out cars and a pile of rubble next to a swimming pool.
Balitsky said crews from Russia’s Emergencies Ministry had extracted two survivors, including a child, and recovered another body from the rubble. He added that rescue operations had been completed.
“The enemy saw and understood who it was targeting,” he said on the Telegram messaging app.
Balitsky said authorities in Kyiv were “ignoring any norms of morality and deliberately destroying the civilian population — adults and children”.
Russia’s Investigative Committee opened a terrorism case in response to the attack, the Russian state news agency RIA said.
(Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Alessandra Prentice; Editing by Kevin Liffey, Ron Popeski and Paul Simao)
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