Russia strikes museum with missile killing two civilians

A Russian missile struck a museum in the center of the city of Kupiansk in eastern Ukraine on Tuesday, killing two women and wounding 10 others, the State Emergency Service said.

Rescuers were digging through the rubble to retrieve the bodies after the museum was hit by what the head of the Presidential Administration, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and the regional governor said was a Russian S-300 missile.

Anatoliy Gayvoronsky, who used to work at the museum, said that the museum director was trapped under the rubble.

“And this is a (museum) worker,” he said, standing in the rain outside the destroyed building and looking at a body bag on the ground.

Resident Yulia, who did not give her last name, said she was at the post office when she heard three explosions in the morning.

“Civilians are suffering every day… Today’s attack happened at 8:55 a.m., it hit the … museum, and I assume there are wounded or dead people there. Civilians, not military. There were no weapons there,” she said.

Zelenskyy posted a video of the destroyed building, which threw debris and garbage onto the street. Windows were smashed and part of the wall and roof were destroyed.

“The terrorist country is doing everything to completely destroy us,” he wrote on Telegram. “Our history, our culture, our people.”

If Russia is not stopped in Ukraine, it will also destroy the culture of other European countries.

Russia did not immediately comment on the attack. It has denied deliberately targeting civilians during its full-scale invasion, which has killed thousands of people, uprooted millions and destroyed buildings in cities, towns and villages across Ukraine.

Kupiansk, which had a pre-war population of 26,000, is an important railroad hub that was occupied by Russian forces for several months after they invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Ukrainian forces drove them out of Kupiansk last September.