Six people killed in Russian glide bomb attack in Kharkiv

KYIV, Ukraine – Russian airstrikes killed six people and injured nearly 100 in the northeast Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, local officials said Saturday – the latest deadly attack by Russian troops using highly destructive glide bombs in the country’s east.

The aerial barrage on Friday evening struck civilian installations throughout Kharkiv, including dozens of apartment blocks and a playground, regional administration head Oleh Syniehubov wrote on Telegram.

A 14-year-old girl was killed near the playground, and more than 20 children and other minors were injured in the attacks, including a 10-month-old baby, Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said.

Russian forces used aerial guided bombs weighing more than 1,000 pounds in the bombardment, according to Ukraine’s general prosecutor’s office.

The Soviet-era bombs – fitted with wings and guidance systems to fly long distances, though with limited accuracy – have become a mainstay of Russia’s assault in the east in recent months, often laying waste to residential districts.

“This strike was a Russian guided aerial bomb – a blow that would not have happened if our Defense Forces had the ability to destroy Russian military aircraft where they are based,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a social media post Friday alongside a video of the attack’s aftermath.

“We need strong solutions from our partners to stop this terror,” Zelenskyy said, renewing calls for Ukraine’s allies to allow Kyiv to use Western weapons to strike inside Russian territory. “This is an absolutely reasonable need. And there is no rational reason to limit Ukraine in (its) defense.”

In a statement Saturday, Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 52 self-destructing drones and five missiles in different regions overnight. Air defenses shot down 24 of the drones, while three went off course into Russia and neighboring Belarus. Most of the remaining drones were brought down by electronic warfare devices, a Ukrainian military official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Also Saturday, Russian shelling killed five people in the eastern Ukrainian city Chasiv Yar, a regional official said.

“The Russians shelled the city this morning … hitting a private house and a high-rise building,” the head of the Donetsk regional military administration, Vadym Filashkin, wrote on Telegram. He urged Ukrainian residents still in the city to evacuate and not turn themselves “into a Russian target.”

In his evening video address Friday, Zelenskyy said the areas around Toretsk and Pokrovsk, also in the Donetsk region, were “the most difficult” points of conflict.

As Russian forces advance, less than 10 miles from downtown Pokrovsk, officials are preparing to evacuate residents. The city is a key supply hub for eastern Ukraine and had a prewar population of about 60,000.

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Stern reported from Mukachevo, Ukraine.