July 24 (Reuters) – A Russian ballistic missile strike on Friday in Ukraine’s Kyiv region killed 10 people and injured close to 100 at the site of a defence industry event that President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said should never have taken place.
Ukraine’s Emergency Services said its crews had completed rescue operations at the site north of the capital.
Pictures posted online by the Emergency Services showed teams sifting through piles of rubble at the site, adjacent to several houses.
“Of course, the cause of this attack is Russian missiles, nothing but Russian terror,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.
“However, we have said a thousand times that under these wartime conditions, with such an enemy, it is absolutely unacceptable to hold any weapons exhibitions with large crowds of people, especially near residential buildings.”
The event, hosted by a drone manufacturers’ association, was taking place in an area a short drive from the outskirts of the capital.
A spokesperson for the military’s general staff said the event took place at a site not under its jurisdiction, but added that any such event required “maximum security measures”.
The acting governor of Kyiv region, Ruslan Oliynyk, said that a day of mourning would be observed on Saturday in the region.
The Ukrainian Council of Defence Industry said that a missile strike hit a site where representatives of Ukraine’s defence industry were present.
It said it was not an organiser of the event.
Valerii Borovyk, founder of Ukrainian drone company First Contact, told Ukrainian media that a missile struck a training ground where a defence industry exhibition was being held.
Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Ruslan Kravchenko, said that a criminal case had been opened on possible failure to perform official duties during the organisation and conduct of the event.
In eastern Ukraine, a Russian aerial bomb attack killed five people and injured nine in the city of Sloviansk, Regional Governor Vadym Filashkin said on Friday.
He later said that a new Russian strike on the city in the evening injured 16 people and damaged residential buildings.
(Reporting by Anna PruchnickaEditing by Gareth Jones, Toby Chopra and Deepa Babington)
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