Ukrainian officials accuse Russia of war crimes after drones attack Kharkiv, leaving many wounded, including children.
Russian drones have struck Ukraine’s eastern city of Kharkiv, killing two people and wounding dozens, the city’s mayor Ihor Terekhov has said.
“For the second time in a week, the enemy launched a combined attack, launching seven ‘Shaheed’ at residential areas, hospitals, and the city’s infrastructure,” Terekhov said in a Telegram message on Sunday, referring to Iranian-made Shahed drones.
The swarm of drones also targeted a military hospital, a shopping centre and apartment blocks, he said.
Five of the 35 people wounded in the attack overnight were children. At least 13 have been hospitalised, including a teenage girl who is in serious condition.
“The events of yesterday evening were indeed very, very violent in Kharkiv, seeing really the brunt of this war in many ways throughout the course of the last several months,” said Al Jazeera’s Zein Basravi, reporting from Kyiv.
“Ukraine’s military said that servicemen were undergoing treatment in this medical centre at the time of the attack and they’re accusing Russia of carrying out a war crime, of violating norms of international humanitarian law in what they described as a deliberate and targeted shelling of this medical facility,” Basravi said.
One survivor, who identified himself as Anton, described running to an adjacent room in his apartment when a drone struck and showered him with shrapnel.
“I had already bid farewell to life,” the 22-year-old, whose head and left hand were heavily bandaged, told the Reuters news agency.
Kharkiv was not the only city to be targeted overnight. Ukraine’s Air Force said on Sunday that Russia had launched 111 drones and one ballistic missile, causing damage also in the Sumy, Odesa and Donetsk regions. It said air defences shot down 65 drones and jammed another 35.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said in a daily bulletin that its forces had struck 140 districts in Ukraine, including military airfields and ammunition depots. It did not mention the hospital.
The attack came as Ukraine seeks strong backing from Western allies to pressure Russia into ending its full-scale invasion of its smaller neighbour. Both sides have accused one another in recent days of violating a US-brokered partial ceasefire, and Russia has continued sending regular swarms of drones over Ukraine.
In a statement on Sunday, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine expected a response from the United States and other allies to the near-daily attacks, adding that Moscow had fired more than 1,000 drones in the past week.
“Russia is dragging out the war, and we are providing our partners with full information on the strikes the Russian army is carrying out and the actions it is preparing for,” the Ukrainian leader said.
Zelenskyy has also warned in recent days that Russia is planning a spring offensive in parts of northeastern Ukraine.
A peace effort led by US President Donald Trump, whose administration has sought closer ties with Russia, has sparked fears in Kyiv and Europe that Ukraine could be pressured into making far more concessions than Moscow.
During a summit in Paris last week, European leaders pledged to strengthen Kyiv’s army, while France and Britain tried to expand support for a planned foreign “reassurance force” in the event of a truce with Russia.
Following the Kharkiv attack, French Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said Russia was flouting a ceasefire that Ukraine was following.
“Ukraine has agreed to the ceasefire proposed by the United States. But Russia continues its war crimes, just yesterday in Kharkiv,” he wrote on X. “Who can still believe that [Russian President] Vladimir Putin wants peace?”