At least 43 people, including 12 children, have been injured after a missile struck the carpark of a residential building in Ukraine's Kharkiv region, local officials say.

What is believed to be a Russian Iskander missile landed in the town of Pervomaisky at about 13:30 local time.

Ukrainian Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin said there were only residential buildings in the area.

A one-year-old and a 10-month-old were reportedly among the injured.

Mr Kostin said targeting the residential buildings amounted to another war crime from Russia.

Oleg Sinegubov, the Kharkiv regional governor posted several pictures of the damaged building to Telegram. They showed smashed windows, dark smoke clouds and an overturned car.

"At least half of the neighbourhood is in an uninhabitable state," Anton Orekhov, the chairman of Pervomaiskyi was quoted as saying by local media.

Russia has not immediately commented on the incident, and Moscow has previously denied targeting civilians.

Pervomaisky is about 90km (50 miles) south of the major city of Kharkiv and relatively far from the current fighting hotspots, which are predominantly in the Donbas region.

But the north-eastern Kharkiv region was the focus of heavy fighting in the early days of Moscow's full-scale invasion last year, with Ukrainian forces fighting back Russian attempts to advance further into the country.

Earlier on Tuesday, Russia said it had brought down five Ukrainian drones aimed at Moscow and its surrounding region, but reported no casualties or damage.

Source:
courtesy of BBC NEWS

by Antoinette Radford

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