(Kyiv) Five civilians were killed by Russian fire in the Ukrainian regions of Kharkiv and Kherson on Saturday, local authorities said.
A police officer and an emergency services official were killed in a missile attack carried out after emergency services arrived at the scene of an earlier attack in Budy, a village southwest of the regional capital Kharkiv, in the northern frontline zone.
“This is not the first time that Russia has attacked rescue services while they are helping civilians,” Ukrainian Interior Minister Igor Klymenko said on social media.
“For each of these crimes, we will find those responsible and demand accountability – in the courts and on the battlefield,” he said.
The attack left 22 people injured, including five railway workers, said the region’s governor, Oleg Synegubov.
“The enemy deliberately struck twice, 30 minutes apart, while all the relevant services were on site,” he stressed.
The Ukrainian military said in its daily briefing that the Kharkiv region, which has been the target of a new Russian offensive for two months, was “under constant bombardment by enemy aircraft.”
The city of Kharkiv is regularly targeted by Russian troops who launched a ground offensive in its region on May 10, blocked by the Ukrainian army, which has however had to stretch its force.
PHOTO ANDRII MARIENKO, ARCHIVES ASSOCIATED PRESS
A police officer inspects an unexploded 250 kg bomb after a Russian airstrike in Kharkiv region, Ukraine, July 11, 2024.
Three people were also killed on Saturday by Russian bombing in the Kherson region (South), its governor Oleksandr Prokudin said.
The three victims are a 72-year-old woman, a 50-year-old woman and a 41-year-old man, he said.
Russia has been gaining ground in eastern Ukraine since the failure of a major Ukrainian counteroffensive last summer and the fall of the Avdiivka fortress in February, while the Ukrainian army awaits new deliveries of Western weapons.
Fire at Russian oil depot after drone attack
A Ukrainian drone caused a fire at an oil depot in the Rostov region (south) several hundred kilometers from the front line on the night of Friday to Saturday.
“After the drone attack, a fire broke out at an oil refinery in Tsimlyansky district. According to preliminary data, there are no dead or injured,” local governor Vasily Golubev said on Telegram.
PHOTO RUSSIAN DEFENSE MINISTRY PROVIDED BY ASSOCIATED PRESS
In this still from a video released by the Russian Defense Ministry press service on June 18, 2024, a Russian soldier aims an anti-drone gun at an unknown location in the Donetsk region.
He said in the morning that the fire had been extinguished.
Meanwhile, the Defense Ministry announced that it had intercepted and destroyed a total of four drones launched by Ukrainian forces over Russian territory, two in the Rostov region, one in the Belgorod region, close to the Ukrainian border, and one in the Kursk region, a little further north of the border with Ukraine, without commenting on the fire at the oil depot.
Ukraine, which has been facing a Russian offensive for more than two years and has seen its energy infrastructure destroyed by an incessant Russian bombing campaign, is also launching drone strikes deep in Russia against energy and logistics sites, used in particular by the Russian army for its operations on Ukrainian soil.