Russian drones and missiles target Ukrainian city of Kharkiv
The deadly barrage included aerial glide bombs that have become part of fierce Russian attacks in the three-year war.
A large Russian drone and missile attack has targeted the city of Kharkiv in Ukraine, killing at least three people and injuring 21, local Ukrainian officials said.
The Russian barrage – the latest in near daily widescale attacks by Moscow – included deadly aerial glide bombs that have become part of fierce Russian attacks in the three-year war.
The intensity of the Russian attacks on Ukraine in recent weeks has further dampened hopes that the warring sides could reach a peace deal soon – especially after Kyiv recently embarrassed the Kremlin with a surprising drone attack on military airfields deep inside Russia.
According to Ukraine’s Air Force, Russia struck with 215 missiles and drones overnight, and Ukrainian air defences shot down and neutralised 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, Ukraine’s foreign minister Andrii Sybiha said in a post on X.
“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 on Saturday 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 the strikes also damaged 18 blocks of flats and 13 private homes. Mr Terekhov said it was “the most powerful attack” on the city since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Kharkiv’s regional governor Oleh Syniehubov said two districts in the city were struck with three missiles, five aerial glide bombs and 48 drones. Among the injured were two children, a baby boy and a 14-year-old girl, he added.
In the Dnipropetrovsk province further south, two women aged 45 and 88 were injured, according to local governor Serhii Lysak.
Russian shelling also killed a couple in their 50s in the southern city of Kherson, close to the front lines, local governor Oleksandr Prokudin reported in a Facebook post.
Meanwhile, the Russian Defence Ministry said its forces shot down 36 Ukrainian drones overnight, over southern and western Russia, including near the capital. Drone debris injured two civilians in the suburbs of Moscow, local governor Andrei Vorobyov reported.
The attack on Kharkiv comes one day after Russia launched one of the fiercest barrages on Ukraine, striking six Ukrainian territories and killing at least six people and injuring about 80. Among the dead were three emergency responders in Kyiv, one person in Lutsk and two people in Chernihiv.
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. The sides remain far apart on their terms for an end to the fighting.
Ukraine has offered an unconditional 30-day ceasefire and a meeting between its President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian leader Vladimir Putin to break the deadlock. But the Kremlin has effectively rejected a truce and has not budged from its demands.
US President Donald Trump said this week that Mr Putin told him Moscow would respond to Ukraine’s attack on Russian military airfields last Sunday.
Mr Trump also said that it might be better to let Ukraine and Russia “fight for a while” before pulling them apart and pursuing peace. Mr Trump’s comments were a remarkable detour from his often-stated appeals to stop the war and signalled he may be giving up on recent peace efforts.
Later on Saturday, Russia and Ukraine each accused the other of endangering plans to swap 6,000 bodies of soldiers killed in action, agreed upon during direct talks in Istanbul on Monday that otherwise made no progress towards ending the war.
Vladimir Medinsky, an aide of Mr Putin who led the Russian delegation, said that Kyiv called a last-minute halt to an imminent swap. In a Telegram post, Mr Medinsky said that refrigerated trucks carrying more than 1,200 bodies of Ukrainian troops from Russia had already reached the agreed exchange site at the border when the news came.
In response, Ukraine said Russia was playing “dirty games” and manipulating facts. According to the main Ukrainian authority dealing with such swaps, no date had been set for repatriating the bodies. In a statement on Saturday, the agency also accused Russia of submitting lists of prisoners of war for repatriation that did not correspond to agreements reached on Monday.
It was not immediately possible to reconcile the conflicting claims.
Monday’s talks unfolded a day after a string of stunning long-range attacks by both sides, with Ukraine launching the devastating drone assault on Russian air bases, and Moscow launching its largest drone attack of the war against Ukraine.
A previous round of negotiations in Istanbul, the first time Russian and Ukrainian negotiators sat at the same table since the early weeks of the full-scale invasion, led to 1,000 prisoners on both sides being exchanged.
