Security cam shows moment hardware store was hit by Russian missile

Security cam shows moment hardware store was hit by Russian missile

Dramatic video of the moment a Russian strike hit a shopping center in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city. At least two people were killed and dozens more injured in the attack. Two more strikes in other parts of Hakim followed the initial hit. CNN’s Nick Paton Walsh is in eastern Ukraine. Nick, Russia has been on the offensive in Kharkiv. Is this stepping up of their attack? Yeah, look, I mean, this could have been potentially the worst civilian casualties we’ve seen since Russia’s offensive about two weeks ago. Now, from the north of Haki, from their border areas down to Ukraine’s second city at the moment. The death toll, though, is four. It’s been rising. We could have as many as 40 injured in this one attack on a huge hardware store complex in an area in the northern areas of Haki. We’ve been there our selves. A chain store across all of Ukraine. So much fire burning, frankly, because of the paint’s, because of the hardware store elements you would expect to find there. And clearly no reticence at all from Russia’s air force to hit this with what Ukrainian officials are saying were two collided bombs, two air strikes right in the middle of a Saturday afternoon. After that, another air strike hitting hockey. Nobody injured there, officials say, and a third in which we’re hearing of about 11 people being injured. Separately and earlier on that morning in the middle of the night. Another airstrike at 2 a.m. So a sign, I think, that Russia is beginning to focus its efforts on hockey. We’ve known that they’ve been militarily trying to advance towards it. And the fear has always been that they might get close enough to start using their artillery against that city of over a million people. It is clear this afternoon they haven’t got within that sort of range, but they are still able to use the gliders guiding bombs that their aircraft launch from Russia to significant effect. President Volodymyr Zelensky pointing out clearly that there were 200 people, he says inside that complex when this explosion happened. It’s clear a significant amount of that got out and are safe, but the number of injured keep rising, as does the clarity here of quite what Russia is prepared to do. That military defense saying they hit a military warehouse while the pictures emerging from there, some just showing women pushing their children past the burning wreckage of this hardware complex, really showing how civilian indeed this was as so many targets inside Ukraine hit by Russia. Yeah, horrible. And then, you know, what about the U.S. military supplies? Have they arrived yet? You know, we don’t have full transparency over exactly when the supplies begin to get into the hands of Ukrainian troops on the front line. And it’s quite clear from how the flavor, the nature of Ukrainian losses on the battlefield simply have not improved over the past weeks, that they’re not arriving in an adequate way to change the dynamic of the conflict. President Blow, there’s Nijinsky suggested that they are now in what he called combat control over the areas in the north from Kiev, where Russia launched its most recent invasion, its most recent offensive. It’s unclear what that really means. There clearly are areas in that most recent Russian push that Ukraine still feels under huge pressure. And there are other fronts indeed here in the eastern parts of Ukraine where Russia is also seeing success, too. So I think many have seen this moment now as Russia’s best chance to capitalize upon the ammunition shortages, the equipment shortages, even the personnel shortages that Ukraine has been experiencing and in the personnel sense will continue to experience in the months ahead. So Russia is seizing that, seeing some success, and the race is really on for U.S. munitions to start arriving in Russian hands in such a meaningful way that they can actually change the course of the battlefield. Because be in no mistake right now, the scenes in hockey are potentially a premonition of how bad it could get in Ukraine’s second city if Russian gets close enough, and also how bad things could begin to deteriorate across eastern front line unless U.S. and NATO weaponry starts really making a difference. It isn’t at the moment. Yeah. All right. Nick Paton Walsh in eastern Ukraine, thanks so much. So as Russia steps up the war in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin is expanding a purge of high ranking military officials and shaking up its ranks. CNN’s Brian Todd has more. As he swaggered in the presidential palace of his top ally in Belarus and crowed about the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons in that country. The former KGB colonel ruthlessly pressed on with a purge of his top military brass at home to top Russian military officials just arrested as Vladimir Putin’s purported campaign to stamp out corruption continues. I think it’s definitely the biggest military shakeup that we’ve seen in Moscow since the start of the war that we’re aware of. One of those arrested. Lieutenant General Vadim Shimron, a top communications officer in the Russian army. He’s accused of taking large scale bribes. Russian state media reports that despite having an annual salary in 2018 of about 32,000 American dollars, Cameron’s wife in 2022 bought a mercedes worth over $200,000. Analysts say not unusual in a military rife with corruption. I mean, the Russian military is known for padding contracts. They will write a big contract and take a cut. This kind of rampant corruption is normal. And again, the higher you go, the more rampant it is. With these latest arrests, five top Russian military officials have been arrested in the past couple of months. At least four have denied wrongdoing. Earlier this month, Putin pushed out his longtime defense minister and close ally, Sergei Shoigu, and replaced him with an economist. This all comes as Russian forces have made recent gains on the battlefield in Ukraine, a still grinding war that Putin has ramped up spending for. Russia’s moving to a war economy. That’s true. 7% of their GDP now is focused on defense. They’re on a war footing. But some analysts believe there’s more going on inside the Kremlin than Putin trying to clean up his defense spending. I mean, it really feels to me like a Soviet style purge. He’s probably done some forensics since the march on Moscow last summer, remember? Bye bye. Yevgeny Prigozhin. Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner mercenary chief who led a short lived rebellion against the Kremlin last year after viciously and very publicly accusing Shoigu and the chief of the general staff, Valery Gerasimov, of not supporting Wagner militants on the battlefield. Once doing that, while strolling among the dead bodies of his mercenaries. Strike attached to a mob. Prigozhin later died in a mysterious plane crash. Analysts say Putin could now be sorting out who’s really loyal to him and sending a message to the Russian people. Allows Putin to say to his domestic audience, yeah, I’m cleaning shop here and we’re going to be in this for a while. Experts say it’s possible that more purges could be coming from Vladimir Putin and that the powerful chief of the general staff, Valery Gerasimov, might need to look over his shoulder. Although one analyst points out Gerasimov is at the top of the military pyramid and Putin might need to tread carefully with him. Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.

At least two people have been killed and 33 injured after a Russian strike hit a large hardware store in Kharkiv, Ukraine, according to officials. CNN’s Nick Paton Walsh reports. #CNN #News