(Kharkiv) At least one person was killed and more than forty injured during a series of strikes targeting the cities of Kharkiv and Odessa in Ukraine, local authorities announced Friday, the day after deadly bombings on Zaporizhia.
Posted at 6:37 a.m.
“Missiles, drones and glide bombs were used against the regions of Odessa, Kharkiv and Kyiv,” noted President Volodymyr Zelensky.
According to the Ukrainian Air Force, Russia fired five missiles, 92 drones and glide bombs overnight, with four missiles and 62 drones shot down.
In Kharkiv, the country’s second city located in the northeast near the Russian border, 25 people were injured, according to local authorities.
PHOTO SOFIIA GATILOVA, REUTERS
Rescuers work at the site of an apartment building hit by a Russian airstrike, in Kharkiv, November 8, 2024.
“In the very center of the city, the enemy has […] damaged historical buildings, public places and residential buildings,” regional governor Oleg Synegoubov said on Telegram.
AFP journalists saw rescuers evacuating panicked civilians from residential buildings hit by the strikes.
Four people were injured near Kyiv, where AFP journalists heard air raid sirens sounding and at least one explosion echoing above the Ukrainian capital.
In Odessa, a major Black Sea port, one person was killed and nine others injured in a strike that damaged residential buildings, according to local authorities.
PHOTO BY NINA LIASHONOK, REUTERS
In Odessa, a major Black Sea port, one person was killed and nine others injured in a strike that damaged residential buildings, according to local authorities.
The day before, a series of Russian strikes on Zaporizhia, a city in southern Ukraine, left nine people dead, including a baby, and at least 42 injured, according to a new report from the governor.
On the Russian side, two employees of an electricity company were killed in a Ukrainian drone attack on their vehicle in Gorlivka, in the territories of eastern Ukraine occupied by Russia, local media announced.
For months, Ukrainian authorities have been asking their Western allies to provide them with more air defense systems to repel Russian attacks.
On Thursday, the head of the Russian Security Council, Sergei Shoigu, urged the West to start negotiating with Moscow to avoid “the destruction of the Ukrainian people”.
Meeting between Russian and Ukrainian human rights mediators
Russian and Ukrainian human rights mediators announced Friday that they had met in Belarus to discuss humanitarian issues, a rare contact between representatives of Moscow and Kyiv after more than two and a half years of war.
“An equal meeting took place with the Ukrainian side on the territory of Belarus,” said the Russian mediator, Tatiana Moskalkova, on Telegram.
“I am interacting with the Russian mediator to resolve humanitarian issues,” said the Ukrainian mediator, Dmytro Loubinets, shortly after the announcement of the repatriation of the bodies of 563 Ukrainian soldiers.
According to Mme Moskalkova, the two sides exchanged lists of prisoners of war and letters from their families to them and “discussed continued humanitarian cooperation to provide assistance to civilians.”
A 91-year-old woman living in Ukraine was also repatriated to Russia, to her family, on the sidelines of this meeting, said Mme Moskalkova.
“We delivered letters from Ukrainian relatives to Ukrainian prisoners of war in Russia,” said Mr. Loubinets, also confirming the other themes mentioned.
This is the first official meeting between the two officials since January 2023.
Russia and Ukraine have organized numerous exchanges of prisoners of war since the start of the conflict, which have involved thousands of people on each side.
Ukraine announced earlier Friday that Russia had handed over the bodies of 563 soldiers killed in the war between the two countries, without saying whether it was an exchange.
