Six dead in market attack as Ukraine remembers war dead

Six people have been killed in a local market area in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson.

According to regional authorities the Russian shelling happened at around 09:00 (06:00 GMT). That was just as people across Ukraine had stopped to remember their war dead.

“Defenders Day” is held annually in honour of the armed forces.

The shelling, near a local market and bus stop, was probably from Russian “barrel artillery”, according to the region’s prosecutor’s office.

One image, from local media, showed a body lying on the pavement by boxes of fruit.

Moscow has repeatedly denied targeting civilians.

Initial reports said seven had died. Doctors were able to save one person who had initially been “considered dead”.

Kherson was occupied by Russian troops shortly after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and was liberated by Ukraine in November.

It still lies extremely close to the frontline with fierce fighting on the other side of the Dnipro River.

It was at 08:55 on Tuesday that people in Kyiv and throughout Ukraine observed a10-minute silence for Defenders Day.

A small crowd had gathered at a memorial site on Maidan Square in Kyiv.

Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, thousands of Ukrainian flags have been planted here alongside framed pictures of fallen soldiers.

Halyna’s 29 year old son, Kostyantyn, was killed fighting in the Kherson region in July 2022.

“He was a platoon leader, a junior lieutenant,” Halyna told the BBC, clinging on to a photo of him, holding back tears.

“He was a very nice guy. His comrades came recently and told how he fought and how he died. It’s very hard for me.”

As the silence began, we watched as cars stopped in the middle of a busy road and people stood solemnly in the streets in a moment that felt charged with emotion, sorrow and intense national pride.

Soon, the sound of the Ukrainian national anthem could be heard echoing through the still streets.

It was at around that time that the strike on Kherson city took place in southern Ukraine.

Separately, 21 people have reportedly been wounded due to Russian glide bombs hitting residential and industrial areas in the city of Zaporizhzhia.

On the front line in Ukraine’s east, Russian troops continue to press hard and Donetsk regional head Vadym Filashkin has said they have almost reached the centre of the town of Vuhledar.

Just 107 people are said to remain in the bombed out town with children already evacuated and humanitarian aid “almost impossible” to deliver – according to Filashkin.

As part of Defenders Day, President Volodymyr Zelensky paid tribute to those who had been killed in the fighting, saying: “You sacrifice yourselves so that Ukraine does not have to be sacrificed.”

Yuliya’s partner, Bogdan, served as an army medic treating people during the devastating siege of Mariupol before he was captured by Russian troops.

“I have a daughter, she’s five years old so I think she helps me a lot because she’s my sense now to live. I need to be strong. And I need to be now a mother and a father in one person.”

Bogdan was one of dozens who died in the July 2022 explosion at Olenivka prison, which Kyiv believes was a deliberate attempt by Russia to destroy evidence of war crimes although Moscow blamed Ukrainian missiles.

For countless Ukrainian families, remembrance is a private act, as well as a public one.

Yuliya says she wants to her daughter to remember her father: “What he did for us and everything we have now is because of him. He was protecting us.”