Two young women have been killed in a Ukrainian drone strike on a cafe in Kherson Region, Russia, Governor Vladimir Saldo has said, adding that a separate attack killed a truck driver nearby.
The drone raid struck the small town of Askania-Nova on Friday, hitting the Day-Night Cafe, he said in a Telegram post.
“The building was completely destroyed. Rescuers found the bodies of two young women, born in 2004 and 2006, under the rubble,” he wrote.
Two survivors, a man born in 1993 and a woman born in 2007, suffered shrapnel wounds and concussions and were rushed to a nearby hospital, he added.
Photos of the aftermath show the building completely destroyed.
The blast also partially knocked out the windows of a nearby residential block and severely damaged a car.
A separate Ukrainian strike killed the driver of a cargo truck carrying produce in the nearby town of Chaplinka, Saldo said, adding that Ukraine “is once again attacking purely civilian targets.”
Moscow has long accused Kiev of using terrorist tactics in the Ukraine conflict, including deliberately targeting civilians and non-combatants such as emergency service workers.
The attacks came days after three humanitarian volunteers from Omsk Region were killed and another was wounded when their vehicle was struck by Ukrainian forces near Novobogdanovka in Zaporozhye Region.
Russian Ambassador-at-large Rodion Miroshnik called the attack a war crime, blaming it on Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky and accusing Kiev of “seeking to create unbearable living conditions in” the region, which it claims as its own.