Russian drone and missile strikes kill at least 4 in Ukraine in latest attack
Russia's Defence Ministry says it used long-range weapons, drones on military targets
Ukrainian officials say a massive Russian drone and missile attack in the eastern city of Kharkiv on Saturday has killed at least four people and wounded over two dozen others, the latest in nearly daily widespread attacks.
The first wave on Ukraine's second largest city was a large Russian drone and missile attack in the early hours. It killed at least three people and wounded 21 others, according to local officials.
In the afternoon, Russia dropped aerial bombs on Kharkiv's city centre, killing at least one person and wounding five more, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said.
The two sides also accused each other of trying to sabotage a planned prisoner exchange, nearly a week after Kyiv launched a surprise drone attack on military airfields deep inside Russia.
Saturday's attacks included aerial glide bombs that have become part of a fierce Russian onslaught in the war that began on Feb. 24, 2022.
Later in the day, the Russian Defence Ministry confirmed its forces carried out strikes using high-precision long-range weapons and drones on military targets in Ukraine overnight.
"The objective of the strikes has been achieved. All designated targets have been hit," the ministry said.
The Defence Ministry said its forces shot down 36 Ukrainian drones over the country's south and west, including near the capital.
Four Ukrainian unmanned boats have also been destroyed in the Black Sea, Russian news agencies reported, citing the
ministry.
However, there was no comment from Moscow on the reports of casualties in Kharkiv.
In recent weeks, the intensity of the Russian attacks, along with Kyiv's recent surprise drone attack, appear to be dampening hopes the warring sides could reach a peace deal anytime soon.
The attacks have killed more than 12,000 civilians, according to the United Nations.
On Saturday, Ukraine's air force said Russia struck with 215 missiles and drones overnight, and Ukrainian air defences shot down and neutralized 87 drones and seven missiles.
Terekhov said the attack in Kharkiv also damaged 18 apartment buildings and 13 private homes.
Kharkiv residents describe destruction
As firefighters and emergency workers bustled around attack sites in Kharkiv, residents described the strikes that damaged their homes and nearly took their lives.
Alina Belous said she had tried to extinguish flames with buckets of water to rescue a young girl trapped inside a burning building who had called out for help.
"We were trying to put it out ourselves with our buckets, together with our neighbours. Then, the rescuers arrived and started helping us put out the fire, but there was smoke and they worried that we couldn't stay there. When the ceiling started falling off, they took us out," she said.
Another Kharkiv resident, Vadym Ihnachenko, said that he thought at first that it was a neighbouring building going up in flames.
"But when we saw sparks coming from the top, we realized it was our building," he said.
Several other areas in Ukraine were also hit, including the regions of Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk and Odesa, and the city of Ternopil, Ukrainian 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.
Kharkiv's regional governor, Oleh Syniehubov, said two districts in the city were struck Saturday with three missiles, five aerial glide bombs and 48 drones. Among the injured were a baby boy and a 14-year-old girl, he added.
In the Dnipropetrovsk province further south, two women ages 45 and 88 were injured, according to local Gov. Serhii Lysak.
Russian shelling also killed a couple in their 50s in the southern city of Kherson, close to the front lines, local Gov. Oleksandr Prokudin reported in a Facebook post.
U.S. President Donald Trump said this week that Russian President Vladimir Putin told him Moscow would respond to Ukraine's attack last Sunday on Russian military airfields.
Trump also said that it might be better to let Ukraine and Russia "fight for a while" before pulling them apart and pursuing peace.
His comments appeared to be a detour from his often-stated appeals to stop the war and signalled he may be giving up on recent peace efforts.
Prisoner swap called into question
Amid Saturday's attacks, Russia and Ukraine accused each other of endangering plans to swap 6,000 bodies of soldiers killed in action, agreed upon during direct talks this past Monday in Istanbul that otherwise made no progress in ending the war.
Vladimir Medinsky, a Putin aide who led the Russian delegation, said Kyiv called a last-minute halt to an imminent swap.
In a Telegram post, Medinsky said 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 Saturday, the agency also accused Russia of submitting lists of prisoners of war for repatriation that didn't correspond to agreements reached on Monday.
Reconciling the conflicting claims wasn't immediately possible.
Monday's talks unfolded a day after a string of long-range attacks by both sides, with Ukraine launching a drone assault on Russian airbases 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.
With files from CBC and Reuters