A Russian missile strike pounded a Ukrainian city today killing 23 civilians just hours before Vladimir Putin expects to annexe the territory.
At least 23 people were killed and 28 wounded in a Russian missile strike that hit a convoy of civilian vehicles near the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia on Friday, the regional governor said.
"So far, 23 dead and 28 wounded. All civilians," Oleksandr Starukh, the Zaporizhzhia regional governor, wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
A witness saw bodies lying on the ground or still in vehicles at the city's sprawling Orekhovo car market. A missile had left a crater in the ground near two lines of vehicles.
Police and emergency workers had rushed to the scene of the missile strike, the impact of which threw chunks of dirt into the air and sprayed the vehicles with shrapnel. The windows of the vehicles - mostly cars and three vans - were blown out.
The vehicles were packed with the occupants' belongings, blankets and suitcases. A body leaned from the driver's seat into the passenger seat of a yellow car, his left hand still clutching the steering wheel.
Plastic sheets were draped over the bodies of a woman and young man in a green car in the next car in front. A dead cat lay next to the young man in the rear seat.
Two bodies lay in a white mini-van in front of that car, its windows blown and the sides pitted with shrapnel.
A woman who gave her name as Nataliya said she and her husband had been visiting their children in Zaporizhzhia.
"We were returning to my mother who is 90 years old. We have been spared. It's a miracle," she said, standing with her husband beside their car.
Russia, which invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24 in what it calls a special military operation, denies deliberately targeting civilians though its attacks have devastated Ukrainian towns and cities.
It comes just hours before Russian President Vladimir Putin plans to sign treaties that will annexe four regions of Ukraine, effectively forcing them to become part of the Russian Federation.
Local media announced the despot will sign accession treaties for parts of the country currently held by the Kremlin's troops at 3pm Moscow time on Friday (12pm BST).
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said a signing ceremony would take place "on agreements on the accession of new territories into the Russian Federation."
Agreements will be signed "with all four territories that held refererndums and made corresponding requests to the Russian side," Peskov said.
The votes were cast in the West as illegal and illegitimate. Putin's decision to incorporate the regions into Russia means Moscow will annex vast areas across eastern and southern Ukraine, representing around 15% of Ukraine's total territory.
Russian-backed officials in four regions of Ukraine controlled by Russian forces said referendums showed overwhelming majorities of their populations had voted to join Russia in votes slammed by Ukraine and the West as "shams".
Following the signing ceremonies in the Kremlin, Putin will give a major speech and will meet with Moscow-appointed administrators of the Ukrainian regions, the Kremlin said.
The Prime Minister, Liz Truss, said: “Vladimir Putin has, once again, acted in violation of international law with clear disregard for the lives of the Ukrainian people he claims to represent.
“The UK will never ignore the sovereign will of those people and we will never accept the regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia as anything other than Ukrainian territory.
“Putin cannot be allowed to alter international borders using brute force. We will ensure he loses this illegal war.”
