At least seven people including children have been killed and several others injured after a Russian airstrike hit an apartment block in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has said.
Regional governor Oleg Synegubov said the missile damaged a five-storey residential building on Saturday morning. He added that rescue workers are clearing up debris.
The latest overnight attacks triggered air alerts across Ukraine – including in Dnipropetrovsk and in Zaporizhzhia.
Russia’s defence ministry confirmed it used drones to carry out strikes on Ukrainian targets – adding its forces struck Ukrainian military compounds, airfields and energy facilities, the Interfax news agency said.
Separately, the Polish air force said it had scrambled military jets to protect its airspace in regions bordering Ukraine, as it usually does in the event of large scale Russian strikes.
Detailing the aftermath of the strikes, Synegubov said that in Kharkiv, a 65-year-old woman, a 40-year-old man, and a 13-year-old girl were among those killed.
The bodies of four more people were found, including a nine-year-old boy, he later said on Telegram.
Synegubov said seven apartment buildings were damaged as were power grids and an administrative building in the city.
Zelensky said at least ten more people – including children – have been injured.
“There may still be people under the rubble,” Zelensky said.
“All necessary services are working at the scene to rescue them.”
Zelensky added that overnight Russia used 29 missiles and 480 drones which he said “targeted energy facilities” in Kyiv, Khmelnytskyi and Chernivtsi regions, and the railway in Zhytomyr region.
“There must be a response from partners to these brutal attacks on life,” Zelensky said.
Elsewhere, Oleksandr Ganzha, head of the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Military Administration, said one person had been killed and another wounded in a Russian attack overnight in the Nikopol district.
Ganzha said on Telegram that the Russian army targeted the area around 20 times using drones, artillery, and rockets.
A separate strike wounded a baby in Zaporizhzhia, while in Chuguiv in the Kharkiv region, Mayor Halyna Minayeva said two people were injured in a drone attack on a house in the city’s centre.
