Overnight on 6 February, Russia launched its daily aerial assault against Ukraine, with a Shahed drone strike damaging Kharkiv’s Barabashovo market, the city’s largest marketplace. At least 76 of 77 drones did not reach their targets.
Ukrainian Air Force reported that Russian forces launched 77 attack drones, including Shahed-type UAVs and various decoy drones, from multiple locations in Russia including Oryol, Kursk, Bryansk, Millerovo, and Shatalovo. The attack also involved two Iskander-M ballistic missiles fired from Rostov Oblast.
The Air Force says Ukrainian air defense systems, including aviation, anti-aircraft missile forces, electronic warfare units, and mobile fire groups from the Air Force and Defense Forces, intercepted 56 attack drones across Kharkiv, Poltava, Sumy, Kyiv, Cherkasy, Chernihiv, Zhytomyr, Vinnytsia, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipropetrovsk, and Odesa oblasts. Additionally, 18 Russian decoy drones were lost from radar without negative consequences.
The Air Force’s data suggest that at least one drone and both ballistic missiles might have reached their targets.
Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov reported that the strike hit one of Kharkiv’s largest markets in the Kyiv district, near transport infrastructure, causing fires in trading pavilions.
Oleh Syniehubov, head of the Kharkiv Oblast Military Administration, confirmed that debris from a Russian drone damaged approximately 100 “trade pavillions,” referring to the shops and kiosks located at the marketplace. Syniehubov also added that debris of a Shahed drone – referred to by him as ‘Geran,’ its Russian designation – damaged power lines in Kharkiv’s Novobavarian district around 01:00. The oblast chief reported no casualties.
Local merchants spoke to Suspilne about the impact. Natalia, whose shop was hit for the first time since the market opened, told Suspilne Kharkiv that her hosiery store was completely destroyed and deemed too dangerous to enter due to structural damage.
“Socks, tights – the store is completely gone, everything is destroyed. It’s impossible to open the store because it might fall on your head, and then… You know the consequences – and we would be gone. Thank God it happened at night, not during the day, because we would have been gone,” she noted.
Another merchant, Lidiia Trufanova, reported that about 50% of her coat inventory was damaged by debris.
The Barabashovo market has been targeted multiple times early into Russia’s invasion, when the city was within the range of the Russian artillery.
- On 17 March 2022, a Russian attack caused fires across the market’s pavilions, with a follow-up strike injuring two rescuers, one of whom died.
- The market was also hit on 25 March and 21 May 2022.
- On 21 July 2022, a Russian Uragan cluster munition attack killed two men and wounded 21 people.
Related:
- Russian missile strike on central Izium kills four
- Russia equips decoy Gerbera drones with explosive payloads
- Russian drones hit residential house, infrastructure facilities as Ukraine downs most UAVs
- Death toll from Russia’s Poltava missile strike rose to 14, including two children
- Russian attack on Ukraine kills 4 people, injures at least 15 overnight
- German embassy delivers vehicles to three war-affected Kharkiv communities
- Russia sentences Ukrainian aid driver who searched for his mother in occupied Kharkiv Oblast to 11 years
