Russian missile strike on market kills 17 as Blinken announces aid package

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky greets US secretary of state Antony Blinken (Brendan Smialowski/Pool/AP)

A Russian missile tore through an outdoor market in eastern Ukraine on Wednesday, killing 17 people and wounding dozens, as US secretary of state Antony Blinken returned to the country with more than one billion dollars (£800 million) in new funding.

Mr Blinken’s fourth visit to the country was overshadowed by the strike in the city of Kostiantynivka, near the front line in the Donetsk region, that turned the marketplace into an inferno.