Russian strike on Ukraine kills four, including toddlers: official

KYIV: A Russian drone strike on the Ukrainian city of Bogodukhiv killed three children and their father, an official said on Wednesday.

Two one-year-old boys and a two-year-old girl died as a result of an enemy strike on a “private residential house” in the eastern city that sits close to Russia’s border, the regional prosecutor’s office said on Wednesday.

A 34-year-old man, identified by prosecutors as the children’s father, who was also in the house died from his wounds.

“As a result of the strike, the house was completely destroyed and caught fire, and the family was trapped under the rubble,” prosecutors said in a statement posted on Telegram.

A woman, identified by prosecutors as the children’s mother who is eight months pregnant, was injured in the blast and sustained “a traumatic brain injury, acoustic barotrauma, and thermal burns”, prosecutors said.

The regional prosecutor’s office said it has launched a pre-trial investigation “into the commission of a war crime resulting in the death of civilians”.

Bogodukhiv is located in the Kharkiv region, where Russian forces have recently stepped up attacks on transport and energy infrastructure.

Ukrainian and Russian officials have held US-mediated talks in Abu Dhabi aimed at ending Moscow’s four-year invasion.

The two sides conducted a prisoner swap last week, but an agreement to end the nearly four-year war seems a way off.

According to the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU), around 15,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed since Russia invaded in February 2022.

HRMMU said that 2025 was the deadliest year with more than 2,500 civilians killed.