“Please! I need to hold his hand!” Russian shelling pounded a densely populated area in Ukraine’s second-largest city Thursday, killing at least three people and injuring at least 23 others with a barrage that struck a mosque, a medical facility and a shopping area, according to officials and witnesses. Police in the northeast city of Kharkiv said cluster bombs hit Barabashovo Market, where Associated Press journalists saw a woman crying over her dead husband’s body. Local officials said the shelling also struck a bus stop, a gym and a residential building. At the market, Sabina Pogorelets’ desperate screams pierced the air as she begged Ukrainian police to let her embrace her husband, Artem, a vendor whose body was lying partly covered with cloth next to a small stall. A bloody wound could be seen on his head as policemen gently pulled his wife away so medical workers could take away his body. “Please! I need to hold his hand!” Pogorelets cried. Nearby, a man hugged his small daughter as he and other visitors stood in shock. Emergency teams treated at least two of the wounded in nearby ambulances. “People started working little by little, they came out to sell things, and residents came here to buy things,” said Volodymyr Tymoshko, head of the National Police in the Kharkiv region. “And exactly this place was hit by Uragan rockets with cluster bombs to maximize the damage to people.” The cluster bombs claim could not be independently confirmed. AP journalists at the scene saw burned-out cars and a bus pierced by shrapnel. #war #russia #ukraine #invasion For @apnews