At least one person was killed and 35 more injured following a Russian guided aerial bomb attack on Ukraine’s second city Kharkiv on Wednesday evening, local authorities reported.
Russia struck a nine-storey residential building with a high-explosive FAB-500 bomb just before 11pm local time on Wednesday, Kharkiv Governor Oleh Synyehubov said, destroying multiple floors and killing a 12-year-old boy.
Synyehubov accused Russia of “choosing nighttime for terror, when people are at home with their families”, and said that a 15-year-old boy remained trapped under the rubble and that rescue attempts were being complicated by the “severe structural damage” to the building and the risk of collapse.
A total of 35 people were injured in the attack, with more likely still trapped beneath the rubble, Ukraine’s Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said on Thursday morning.
Posting a video of the ruins of the building on X, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urged Kyiv’s partners not to delay their decision-making on Ukraine’s security. “Partners see what happens every day. In these circumstances, every delayed decision on their part means dozens or even hundreds more Russian bombs used against Ukraine.”
The strike is the third such attack on Kharkiv in recent days, with two strikes on Tuesday killing four people and causing significant damage to the city’s Derzhprom building, a constructivist landmark dating from 1928 that is under UNESCO protection pending the approval of its World Heritage Site status.