A Russian attack on a village in the Kharkiv region of northeast Ukraine killed 10 people, Kyiv said on Tuesday, vowing to respond.

The strike comes amid a surge in civilian deaths in the four-and-a-half-year war.

Russian forces “carried out a rocket strike on Pechenihy”, a village around 40km (25 miles) from the Russian border, Kharkiv regional governor Oleg Synegubov said on social media.

“According to preliminary information, 10 people were killed,” he added, with 17 people wounded.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on social media that the strike hit a busy intersection, “a location with a post office and stores, surrounded only by residential buildings”.

Images from the site of the attack posted by the Ukrainian emergency services showed rescuers working at the scene, carrying people to safety amid destroyed buildings, smouldering rubble and cars on fire or reduced to charred shells.