A 10-year-old boy and his grandmother were killed after Russia launched fresh drone and missile strikes on Ukraine on Friday.
The pair died following the attack on the city of Kharkiv in which 28 people were woundedan including a 11-month-old child, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said.
Associated Press reporters saw emergency crews pulling the boy's body from the rubble of a building after the early morning attack.
He was wearing pajamas with a Spider-Man design.
Officials said preliminary information indicated the Kremlin’s forces used two Iskander missiles in the attack. One of the missiles landed in the street, leaving a crater, and the other hit a three-story building, setting it ablaze, according to Oleh Syniehubov, head of the Kharkiv Regional State Administration.
Yevhen Shevchenko, a resident of a nearby nine-story building, said he was in bed when the attack occurred. “There was a blast wave, a powerful explosion. It blew out the windows and doors in the apartment.”
A drone attack damaged a grain silo in the Izmail district of the Odesa region, in the latest targeting of the Black Sea port infrastructure regional governor Oleh Kiper said. Nine trucks caught fire at the site but the fire was put out quickly.
Yevhen Shevchenko, a resident of a nearby nine-story building, said he was in bed when the attack occurred. “There was a blast wave, a powerful explosion. It blew out the windows and doors in the apartment,” he said.
The White House condemned the attack on a cafe and grocery store in Hroza village in Kharkiv region as “horrifying”, while Rishi Sunak said the strike “demonstrated the depths of depravity Russian forces are willing to sink to”.
In the latest strikes, Ukrainian air defences shot down 25 of 33 drones launched by Russia from the annexed Crimea peninsular, the air force said in a statement.
The drone strikes targeted Odesa and Mykolaiv regions in the south, Dnipropetrovsk region in the southeast, Cherkasy and Zhytomyr regions in the centre and also Kharkiv region in the northeast, the air force said on the Telegram messaging app.
Moscow denies deliberately targeting civilians, but many have been killed in attacks that have hit residential areas as well as energy, defence, port, grain and other facilities.
Russia has intensified attacks on Ukraine’s southern regions, home to Ukrainian Black Sea and river ports, since Moscow quit a grain deal in July that had ensured safe Ukrainian shipments via the Black Sea to help mitigate a global food crisis.
“The air alert in Odesa lasted for three-and-a-half hours,” Kiper said. “The enemy once again targeted the border and port infrastructure of the Izmail district.” The Ukrainian military said that operations at an international ferry checkpoint ‘Orlivka’ were suspended and vehicles were rerouted following the drone attacks.
The Ukrainian military said that operations at an international ferry checkpoint ‘Orlivka’ on the border with Romania were suspended and vehicles were rerouted following the drone attacks.
