Officials said the Russian attack on Kharkif, an eastern Ukrainian city, killed at least four people on Saturday and injured more than twenty people on Saturday.
The first wave in Ukraine’s second largest city was the early morning Russian drone and inorganic attacks. It killed at least three people and injured 21 people, according to local officials. Mayor Kharkif said that in the afternoon, Russia threw an air bomb in the city center, killing at least one person and injuring five people.
The warring side also accused each other of trying to disrupt planned prisoner exchanges, nearly a week after Kiev's astonishing attack on military airports inside Russia with a surprising drone strike that left the Kremlin awkward.
Saturday’s Barrage – The latest attacks in the latest “Recent Broad Range Attacks” include air-skiing bombs that have become part of the fierce Russian attacks in the war that began on February 24, 2022.
Kharkif residents describe fiery traps
Residents described a strike that destroyed the houses, which almost claimed life on Saturday morning as firefighters and first responders were busy at the scene of the attack in Kharkif.
Alina Belous said she tried to put out the flames with a bucket of water to rescue a young girl trapped in a burning building and he called for help.
“We were trying to get it out with our buckets and our neighbors. Then rescuers arrived and started to help us put out the fire, but there was smoke and they were worried we couldn't stay there. When the ceiling started to fall, they took us away,” she said.
Local resident Vadym Ihnachenko said he thought it was a neighboring building from the beginning.
“But when we saw the spark coming from the top, we realized it was our building,” he said.
“It takes greater pressure from Moscow”
Ukrainian air force said Russia hit 215 missiles and drones overnight, and Ukrainian air defense hit 87 drones and 7 missiles.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said in an X post that several other regions of Ukraine were also hit, including those in the cities of Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk, Odesa and Ternopil, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said in an X post.
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“To end the killing and destruction of Russia, it will take more pressure on Moscow, and so will the steps to strengthen Ukraine,” he said.
The Russian Defense Ministry said on Saturday that its troops conducted a night strike on Ukrainian military targets, including ammunition warehouses, drone parliamentary workshops and weapons repair stations. Moscow has no comments on the Kharkif casualties report.
Kharkif's mayor Ihor Terekhov said the strike also damaged 18 apartment buildings and 13 private houses. Terekov said it was the “most powerful attack” on the city since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion.
The injured child
Kharkiv's regional governor Oleh Syniehubov said the morning attacks hit two areas of the city three missiles, five aerial scooter bombs and 48 drones. He added that there were two children, a baby boy and a 14-year-old girl.
The Prosecutor's Office of Kharkiv said in a statement on the telegram that six people are believed to be trapped under the ruins of industrial facilities in the Kharkiv region. It said contact with those trapped was lost, and rescue attempts have been underway since the afternoon without the naming facilities.
On Saturday afternoon, Russian air bombs attacked Kharkif again, killing at least one person and injuring five people, the mayor said.
According to local Governor Serhii Lysak, the morning strike also injured two people in the south.
Meanwhile, Russia's defense ministry said its troops shot down 36 Ukrainian drones throughout the country's southern and western regions, including near the capital. According to local governor Andrei Vorobyov, drone debris was injured in the suburbs of Moscow.
No breakthroughs on peace agreements
Russia attacked six Ukrainian areas on Friday, killing at least six people and injuring about 80 people. Among the dead, three emergency responders were in Kiev, one in Lutsk and two in Chernihiv.
Diplomatic efforts to reconcile with the United States led to two rounds of direct peace talks between the Russian and Ukrainian delegations, although the negotiations did not bring significant breakthroughs. But both sides maintained long distances while ending the battle.
Prisoners exchange questions
Later Saturday, Russia and Ukraine each accused another dangerous plan of exchanging 6,000 bodies of soldiers killed in operation, and agreed in direct talks in Istanbul on Monday, otherwise they had made no progress in ending the war.
Vladimir Medinsky, a Putin aide who led the Russian delegation, said Kiev said the upcoming exchange was stopped at the last minute. Medinsky said in a telegram post that refrigerated trucks carrying more than 1,200 Ukrainian troops had arrived at the agreed exchange location at the border when the news was reached.
In response, Ukraine said Russia is playing “dirty games” and manipulating the facts. Under Ukraine's main authority to manage such swaps, no date has been set for repatriation of bodies. The agency also accused Russia of submitting a list of repatriated war prisoners in line with the agreement reached on Monday.
It is impossible to reconcile conflict immediately.
New video of airport drone attack
Ukraine's security department released a video on Saturday that was said to show a bold attack on Russian airfields on Sunday, with Kief saying 41 Russian military aircraft were destroyed.
The video shows a flight path from a first-person perspective (FPV, drone) filled with explosives – from a flight path from the roof of a modular building to the Belaya Air Field, where it seems to touch Russian strategic bombers. Seeing other planes engulfed in flames, it was apparently swallowed from previous hits in Ukraine's “Operation Spider Web”.
The last round of negotiations between Russia and Ukrainian negotiators was sitting on the same table for the first time since the early days of the full-scale invasion, which led to the exchange of 1,000 prisoners on both sides.
– Documents with the Associated Press'Joanna Kozlowska
