(Kyiv) A Russian bombing on a building in Kharkiv, a large border town in northeastern Ukraine that is regularly targeted, killed a child and injured at least 29 people on Wednesday evening, local authorities said.
Posted at 6:52 a.m.
Updated at 8:50 p.m.
A Russian bombing on a building in Kharkiv, a large border town in northeastern Ukraine that is regularly targeted, killed a child and injured at least 29 people on Wednesday evening, local authorities said.
A guided aerial bomb, a powerful weapon widely used by Russia, hit a building in the city, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The child killed was an 11-year-old boy who died of “serious head injuries and fractures,” said Governor Oleg Synegoubov.
“The destruction caused by the enemy's guided aerial bomb is quite significant, threatening collapse and endangering the work of rescuers in general,” he said.
PHOTO SOFIIA GATILOVA, REUTERS
Rescue workers at work in the rubble left by the explosion.
Kharkiv Mayor Igor Terekhov said the airstrike destroyed several floors.
Videos circulating online show a gaping hole in the facade of a tall building.
Other images, published by the national police, show a pile of debris mixing pieces of wall, metal, clothing and furniture, at the scene of the attack.
Kharkiv, a large city in the region of the same name, in the north-east of Ukraine, is very regularly the target of Russian fire. It is located less than 30 kilometers from the border with Russia.
On Wednesday evening, Volodymyr Zelensky called his Western partners to action by reacting to this strike.
Every decision they delay means at least dozens, if not hundreds, of Russian bombs against Ukraine. Their decisions affect the lives of our fellow citizens.
Volodymyr Zelensky, President of Ukraine
In particular, he asks the West for the right to strike further into Russian territory with long-range weapons.
In May, the Russian army attempted an offensive in the Kharkiv region, with the announced aim of creating a buffer zone to limit Ukrainian attacks against military or industrial targets on its territory.
Drone attack on Kyiv
Nine people, including an 11-year-old girl, were injured overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, in a Russian drone attack which caused a fire in the affected building, Ukrainian authorities announced .
“Following a drone attack, a fire broke out on the second and third floors of a nine-story building” in the Solomianskiï district (West), Ukrainian emergency services said in a statement published on Telegram.
According to this source, the fire, “over an area of 40 m²”, was quickly “extinguished”, just like in another damaged building.
In total, “nine people were injured” and others evacuated, emergency services said.
The mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, clarified on Telegram that an 11-year-old girl was injured in this attack, when “the debris from the drone” fell.
PHOTO VALENTYN OGIRENKO, REUTERS
A woman shows police officers her apartment, which was damaged by a Russian drone strike, in Kiyv.
On October 25, a Russian drone struck a residential tower also in the Solomianskii district, killing one person and injuring two, according to emergency services.
Ukrainian cities, including Kyiv, have been regularly targeted by Russian drone and missile attacks since the beginning of the invasion by Moscow's forces, more than two and a half years ago.
Ukraine tirelessly asks its Western allies to strengthen its air defenses as a winter approaches, which promises to be the harshest, with Russia intensifying its strikes on energy infrastructure.
The Russian Defense Ministry, for its part, reported 23 Ukrainian drones intercepted over Russian territory during the night from Tuesday to Wednesday.
Russia claims the capture of the village of Krugliakivka
The Russian army, which increased its advances in Ukraine in October, claimed on Wednesday the capture of an additional locality, Krugliakivka, in the Kharkiv region, bordering Russia in the north-east of Ukraine.
“Units of the “West” military group liberated the town of Krugliakivka,” the Russian Defense Ministry announced in a press release.
The village had around 1,200 inhabitants before the war, and is located 20 km south of Kupiansk, a town in the Kharkiv region that Moscow has been trying to conquer for months.
This area had already been occupied by Russia between February and September 2022, at the start of the large-scale conflict, before Ukraine liberated it following a surprise offensive.
Kyiv announced on Tuesday a new mobilization of 160,000 men, faced with accelerating Russian advances and fears of a deployment of North Korean troops in support of Moscow.
Russia has regained the initiative for about a year in the face of Ukrainian troops handicapped by the lack of men, equipment and Western procrastination on the use and extent of military aid provided.
The Russian army made its biggest territorial gains in October over a month since March 2022 and the first weeks of its offensive, according to an AFP analysis on Monday based on data from the American Institute for the Study of war (ISW).
