Russian strike kills at least 49 in east Ukraine: officials

KIEV

Ukrainian officials said Thursday that a Russian strike on a grocery store and cafe in the eastern region of Kharkiv had killed dozens of people.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the strike had slammed into the Kupiansk district of the war-battered region bordering Russia, where Moscow's forces have been pushing to recapture territory they lost last year to Ukrainian troops.

"The brutal Russian crime of hitting an ordinary grocery store with a rocket is a completely deliberate terrorist attack," Zelensky said in a statement on social media.

The Ukrainian prosecutor general said at least 49 people were killed.

Zelensky posted an image of a woman kneeling over the body of someone apparently killed in the strike, with other corpses strewn around her, while rescue workers worked nearby.

The head of the Kharkiv region Oleg Sinegubov said the strike hit a cafe and shop around 1:15 pm (1015 GMT) in the village of Groza.

The village is 30 kilometres (around 20 miles) west of Kupiansk, a frontline town, and is estimated to have had a pre-war population of around 500 people.

"Rescuers are working on the scene," he said, adding that a 6-year-old boy was among the dead. One child had been injured, he added.