Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said a Russian bomb attack in Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, on Saturday afternoon killed at least three people.
Kharkiv Mayor Igor Terekhov said an additional 52 people were wounded in the attack. Kharkiv Oblast Governor Oleh Shniekhbov said four airstrikes hit the city, damaging homes, shops and a public transport station. Four of the injured were in critical condition.
“This Russian terror attack using guided bombs must and can be stopped. We need a bold decision by our partners so that we can destroy Russian terrorists and Russian fighters on the spot,” Zelensky wrote on the messaging app Telegram.
President Zelenskiy said last month that Ukraine urgently needed at least seven more Patriot missile systems to prevent Russian attacks on power grids, civilian areas and military targets with destructive glide bombs that could cause widespread destruction.
Russia also continued to bombard Ukraine’s energy infrastructure with a new barrage of missile and drone attacks overnight, Kiev officials said, damaging energy facilities in the southeast and west and wounding at least two workers.
Ukraine is suffering a new wave of rolling blackouts after a relentless Russian attack on its energy infrastructure that began three months ago wiped out half the country’s generating capacity. Ukraine’s air defenses intercepted 12 of 16 missiles and all 13 drones fired by Russia, according to the Ukrainian Air Force.
State grid operator Ukrenergo said the attack damaged equipment at its facilities in the southeastern region of Zaporizhia and in the western Lviv Oblast. A fire broke out at an energy facility in Zaporizhia, injuring two energy workers, according to the region’s governor, Ivan Fedorov.
No major changes have been reported along the 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front, with recent Kremlin offensives in eastern and northeastern Ukraine resulting in only minor gains, as both sides target infrastructure and seek to curb each other’s fighting capabilities in the war now in its third year.
Moscow’s nighttime attack on Zaporizhia and Lviv followed attacks by Ukrainian forces on three oil refineries in southern Russia since Friday night.
The Russian Defense Ministry said its air defenses had destroyed five drones over the Sea of Azov and over the western Russian regions of Bryansk and Smolensk. Oblast governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said one man was killed in shelling of Russia’s Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine.
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The governor of Donetsk region, a partly occupied region in eastern Ukraine, said on Saturday that five people were killed and seven wounded in a Russian attack the previous day.
In the Russian-controlled area, Moscow-appointed governor Denis Pushilin said three people were killed and four wounded in Ukrainian artillery fire on Saturday morning.
The Ukrainian National Police said a Russian drone attack on a checkpoint had killed one police officer in the part of Kherson it occupied.
