KHARKIV: A Russian missile attack on Ukraine’s northeastern city of Kharkiv killed one man inside his home and wounded at least 112 others, including nine children, on Friday, officials said.
“This is how Russia began this Good Friday – with ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, Shaheds – maiming our people and cities,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on X.
Ihor Terekhov, the mayor of Ukraine’s second biggest city, said the attack damaged 21 apartment buildings, two schools, two kindergartens, a children’s arts centre and a factory, where the strike caused a fire. More than 5,000 windows were shattered in the attack, the official said.
“Everything went flying in all rooms, the windows shattered,” said Inna Khrystych, one of the residents. “My husband died.”
Andriy Ponomarenko said he and his wife were woken by the strike and rushed to find their four-year-old daughter amid the smoke and shattered glass.
Russia launches missile attack on Kyiv and surrounding region, Ukraine says
“We first thought the blood was mine but turned out she got a cut by her eye,” he said.
Ukraine’s foreign minister said Russia launched four missiles at Kharkiv, three of them ballistic and carrying cluster warheads.
“Russia is a terror machine. It will only stop if we confront it with true strength,” Andriy Sybiha added, a day after meeting U.S., French, German and British envoys in Paris.
Zelenskiy added later that advanced Iskander missiles had been used in the attack.
Russia and Ukraine agreed to a U.S.-brokered moratorium on strikes against energy infrastructure last month, but both sides have accused each other since of violating it.
Zelenskiy told a press conference in Kyiv on Thursday that in total, Russia was launching the same number of missiles and drones at Ukraine as before the agreement.
He said that Russia has reduced the number of its strikes on Ukrainian energy facilities, but was attacking civilian infrastructure instead.
A Friday morning drone attack on Sumy, another northeastern city, also killed one person and injured another at a factory baking Easter cakes, officials said.
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