Deadly Russian attack hits eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv
Four people died and more than two dozen others were injured in the strike.
Russian attacks targeting the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv have killed at least four people and wounded more than two dozen others, officials said.
The first wave on Ukraine’s second-largest city was a large Russian drone-and-missile attack in the early hours.
It killed at least three people and wounded 21 others, according to local officials.
In the afternoon, Russia dropped aerial bombs on the city centre, killing at least one person and wounding five more, Kharkiv’s mayor said.
The warring sides also accused each other of trying to sabotage a planned prisoner exchange, nearly a week after Kyiv embarrassed the Kremlin with a surprise drone attack on military airfields deep inside Russia.
Saturday’s barrage – the latest in near daily widescale attacks on Ukraine – included aerial glide bombs that have become part of a fierce Russian onslaught in the all-out war, which began on February 24 2022.
Ukraine’s air force said that Russia struck with 215 missiles and drones overnight, and Ukrainian air defences shot down 87 drones and seven missiles.
Several other areas in Ukraine were also hit, including the regions of Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk, Odesa, and the city of Ternopil, Ukrainian foreign minister Andrii Sybiha said in an X post.
“To put an end to Russia’s killing and destruction, more pressure on Moscow is required, as are more steps to strengthen Ukraine,” he said.
The Russian defence ministry said its forces carried out a night-time strike on Ukrainian military targets, including ammunition depots, drone assembly workshops, and weaponry repair stations. There was no comment from Moscow on the reports of casualties in Kharkiv.
Kharkiv’s mayor, Ihor Terekhov, said that the strikes also damaged 18 apartment buildings and 13 private homes. Mr Terekhov said that it was “the most powerful attack” on the city since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion.
Kharkiv’s regional governor, Oleh Syniehubov, said the morning’s attacks saw two districts in the city struck with three missiles, five aerial glide bombs and 48 drones. Among the wounded were two children, a baby boy and a 14-year-old girl, he added.
Six people are believed to be trapped under the rubble of an industrial facility in Kharkiv’s Kyiv district, The Kharkiv prosecutor’s office said in a statement on Telegram. Contact with those trapped was lost and rescue attempts have been ongoing since early afternoon, it said, without naming the facility.
On Saturday afternoon, Russian aerial bombs struck Kharkiv again, killing at least one person and wounding five others, the mayor said.
The morning strikes also wounded two people in the Dnipropetrovsk province further south, according to local governor Serhii Lysak.
Meanwhile, Russia’s defence ministry said that its forces shot down 36 Ukrainian drones overnight, over the country’s south and west, including near the capital. Drone debris wounded two civilians in the suburbs of Moscow, governor Andrei Vorobyov reported.
A US-led diplomatic push for a settlement has brought two rounds of direct peace talks between delegations from Russia and Ukraine, though the negotiations delivered no significant breakthroughs. But both sides remain far apart on their terms for an end to the fighting.
