Police Update Kostyantynivka Attack Death Toll, UN Coordinator Calls it ‘War Crime’

On Thursday, police said they’d identified the bodies of all but one of the victims of a Russian missile attack Wednesday that left 16 people, including one child, dead.

The Russian army hit a busy market in the Donetsk region city of Kostyantynivka with a missile, believed to be from the S-300 missile system on Wednesday, Sept. 6.

That afternoon, a large crowd of people were gathered at the market. In addition to the 16 dead, many more were injured. The death toll was originally reported as 17 on Wednesday but this has since been revised down.

UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Ukraine Denise Brown called the attack “a war crime.”

“Intentionally directing an attack against civilians or civilian objects or intentionally launching an attack knowing it will cause disproportionate civilian harm is a war crime,” Brown said in a statement released to the press. 

“International humanitarian law must be respected. The people of Ukraine need this cruel devastation to stop,” Brown said. 

The shelling killed 16 people with one victim unidentified, Donetsk region police spokesperson Alexandra Gavrilko said on Thursday, Sept. 7. 

“According to official information, we have 16 bodies of dead people and 33 wounded people. Initially, there was information about 17 dead. When we conducted a visual inspection of the remains of the bodies, we found that they belong to 16 people,” she said.

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With Russia’s full-scale invasion approaching the 1,000-day mark, 3.7 million people have already been displaced inside Ukraine and around 6.7 million have fled as refugees, according to UN figures.

Almost all the victims of the shelling have been identified, relatives of the dead have been found and DNA data has been collected.

“As of the morning, one person remains - this is the body of a man whose relatives have not appeared. We have selected a DNA profile, and appeal to all people who live in Kostyantynivka, whose relatives or acquaintances were there, to contact the police for information,” Gavrilko said.

Brown called the attack on the market “despicable.”

“This deeply tragic and unacceptable event is just another example of the suffering that Russia’s invasion inflicts on civilians across the country,” Brown said.

“In the south, Russian strikes damaged, also today, schools and homes in Zaporizhizhia, and port and grain infrastructure in the Odesa Region. Repeated attacks on Ukrainian ports are depriving farmers of their livelihoods and the world of affordable food when millions are facing hunger in the poorest countries,” she said.