Several Russian strikes left at least three dead and around thirty injured on Wednesday, notably in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second city, pushing Kyiv to ask its Western allies for more modern Patriot air defense systems.
• Read also: Rocket attack: five injured in the Russian region of Belgorod
• Read also: Ukraine: at least five dead after massive Russian strikes
In Kharkiv, which had nearly a million and a half inhabitants before the war, a Russian bombing left at least one dead and 18 injured, including four children, by hitting civilian targets, local authorities announced.
According to initial information from the General Prosecutor’s Office, two high-powered bombs, dropped from a plane, damaged residential buildings, a school and a kindergarten in the middle of the afternoon.
AFP
The Kharkiv region borders the northern border with Russia and regularly finds itself under fire from Russian troops.
Four people had already been injured in nighttime bombings and a drone attack in the region, Synegoubov said earlier.
Two others were killed Wednesday in strikes elsewhere in Ukraine.
The governor of the Kherson region (south) said that a 61-year-old woman had lost her life in her house during a drone attack on the village of Mykhaïlivka, located on one of the banks of the Dnieper, the river which demarcates the front line in this area.
And one person was killed by artillery fire in Nikopol, a town in the southeast, lamented the governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, Serguiï Lyssak.
Eight civilians were also injured in Mykolaiv, a large city in southern Ukraine, in a ballistic missile attack, according to its mayor Oleksandr Sienkevich.
In the occupied town of Gorlivka, in the Donetsk region (east), a Ukrainian strike also caused the death of a woman in her apartment, according to local authorities.
190 missiles in one week
Ukraine is asking its Western allies to send it more aid, and faster. But, in Brussels as in Washington, political divisions have hampered the delivery of arms and the sending of funds in recent months.
President Volodymyr Zelensky once again urged Ukraine’s allies to “accelerate the delivery” of F-16 fighter jets and transfer additional Patriot batteries.
“There is no rational justification to explain why Patriots, of which there are many around the world, still do not cover the skies of Kharkiv and other cities and towns attacked by Russian terrorists,” he added.
A little earlier, his Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dmytro Kouleba, had relayed the same message. The powerful and expensive Patriot system was first supplied to Ukraine in spring 2023.
The head of diplomacy also stressed that solid anti-aircraft defense would make it possible to “save thousands of lives”, reduce the damage inflicted on infrastructure in Ukraine and help soldiers on the front.
Mr. Kouleba assured that Russia had recently intensified its air attacks, with, according to him, the firing of 190 missiles and the sending of 700 guided bombs between March 18 and 24.
“Current Russian attacks are characterized by the intensive use of ballistic missiles, which can reach their target very quickly, leaving little time for civilians to take shelter,” the minister insisted.
Zelensky with his soldiers
Volodymyr Zelensky said he visited the Sumy region in northeastern Ukraine on Wednesday to inspect the new defense lines his country began hastily erecting a few weeks ago to stop the Russian thrust.
AFP
“The construction of fortifications continues in the Sumy region. I inspected trenches, shelters, firing, command and observation positions,” he wrote on Telegram, assuring that Ukraine was “strengthening its defenses.”
Ukraine said it had intercepted 10 of 13 drones launched by Moscow’s army overnight, while Russia claimed to have destroyed Ukrainian projectiles fired by rocket launcher systems in the Belgorod border region.
According to the governor of this Russian region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, a man was injured “by shrapnel”.