Ukrainian rescue and emergency personnel work inside an high-rise apartment building in Kharkiv in northeastern Ukraine early Thursday after it was struck during a Russian drone attack on the city. Photo by Sergey Kozlov/EPA-EFE
At least five people were killed, including a child, and 28 injured after Russian forces launched more than 100 drones, guided bombs and missiles against seven Ukrainian regions overnight.
All of the fatalities occured in the northern city of Pryluky, a city of 51,500 people 90 miles east of Kyiv, where attack drones set residential areas on fire and razed houses, according to the the State Emergency Service.
Ukrainian Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said three of those killed were the wife, daughter and 1-year-old grandson of Pryluky’s fire chief whose home was struck as he was out directing the emergency response to the attack.
“The rescuer who had just responded to the Russian strike with his team, lost them all, said Klymenko.
Viacheslav Chaus, governor of the Chernihiv region, confirmed that a 1-year-old child and two women were among five people confirmed killed in the attack, with six of the injured hospitalized.
“Police, rescuers, and other emergency services are working at the sites of enemy strikes,” he said.
In the east, four children were among at least 17 people injured in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, in a combined drone and missile strike targeting residential districts in the south of the city.
Two men were injured in the southern city of Kherson after four Russian guided bombs struck the central business district, causing extensive damage, with the administrative headquarters for the region almost completely destroyed, Gov. Oleksandr Prokudin said in an update on social media.
The airstrike also badly damaged a nearby apartment building, he added.
Emergency services in Odessa in the southwest of the country said that a medical facility, a children’s center and a high school were destroyed after the region came under attack from Russian drones.
Noting that the one-year-old boy killed in Pryluky was the 632nd Ukrainian child killed in since Russia’s full-scale invasion, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Donetsk, Odessa, Sumy and Dnipro provinces had also come under attack.
“This is another massive strike by terrorists — Russian terrorists — who kill our people every night,” Zelensky said in a post on X, adding that it demonstrated the need for “maximum sanctions,” from Ukraine’s Western allies.
“Russia is constantly trying to buy time for itself to continue the killings. When it does not feel strong enough condemnation and pressure from the world, it kills again. We expect action from the United States, Europe, everyone in the world who can really help change these terrible circumstances.
“Strength matters, and the war can only be ended through strength. We need to put pressure on Moscow with all available tools and step by step deprive it of the ability to continue this aggression,” wrote Zelensky.
The airborne assault from Russia came hours after U.S. President Trump said Russian President Vladimir Putin had told him during a phone conversation Wednesday he would have to retaliate over Ukrainian attacks at weekend targeting Russian aircraft on the ground at airfields deep inside its territory.
