A Russian drone strike on a residential home in northeastern Ukraine has killed a father and his three young children, leaving their pregnant mother critically injured, Ukrainian authorities said on Wednesday.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the attack targeted a private house late Tuesday in the town of Bohodukhiv, in the Kharkiv region near the Russian border. The strike completely destroyed the home, trapping the family under the rubble.
The Kharkiv regional prosecutor’s office confirmed that the victims included twin boys aged two, their one-year-old sister and their 34-year-old father. The children’s mother, 35 weeks pregnant, was rescued alive but sustained severe blast injuries, traumatic brain injury, burns and hearing loss. She remains in hospital fighting for her life.
Authorities in Bohodukhiv, located about 22 kilometres (13 miles) from the Russian border, have declared three days of mourning.
“We have lost what is most precious — our future,” Mayor Volodymyr Bielyi said in a statement, describing the attack as an irreparable tragedy for the community.
In a separate overnight strike in the northeastern Sumy region, two more children were killed as Russian drones targeted several districts, Ukrainian officials said.
Zelenskyy stated that Russia launched 129 long-range drones across Ukraine since Tuesday night. Targets reportedly included a hospital in Zaporizhzhia, a railway depot in Konotop in the Sumy region that damaged a firefighting train, and additional strikes in Dnipro and Poltava.
Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister said a railway station in the Dnipropetrovsk region was also hit early Wednesday, damaging locomotives, rail cars and infrastructure in what he described as a deliberate attack on civilian logistics.
Zelenskyy said the continued strikes demonstrate that Moscow is not preparing to halt its offensive.
“Each such strike undermines diplomatic efforts to end the war and proves that only strong pressure on Russia and clear security guarantees for Ukraine can stop the killings,” he said.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s General Staff said its forces had carried out strikes on nine areas of Russian troop concentration, as well as artillery systems, command posts and a drone control point.
Russian authorities reported that Ukrainian drones caused a fire at an industrial facility in Volgograd, with falling debris damaging an apartment building. Russia’s Defence Ministry said its air defence systems intercepted 108 Ukrainian drones overnight.
The latest violence comes as United States-led diplomatic efforts to end the nearly four-year war continue, though progress remains slow.
Source: Al Jazeera