BBC Information
No less than three individuals have been killed and one other 21 injured within the largest Russian drone assault on Ukraine’s second-largest metropolis of Kharkiv, the mayor has stated.
Ihor Terekhov stated that in a single day Russia launched 48 drones, two missiles and 4 gliding bombs in an assault he described as “open terror”.
It comes after an enormous wave of drones and missiles struck throughout Ukraine on Thursday evening. Moscow stated the strikes had been in response to “terrorist assaults by the Kyiv regime”, following Ukraine’s shock raids on Russian air bases final Sunday.
In the meantime, Russian and Ukrainian officers launched conflicting accounts about when a prisoner swap agreed at earlier talks will happen.
Some 18 condominium buildings and 13 different properties in Kharkiv had been hit in a single day throughout Friday’s assault, the town’s mayor stated. A child and a 14 year-old woman had been among the many injured, he added.
Two individuals had been additionally killed in Russian strikes on Kherson, in southern Ukraine, native authorities stated.
Ukrainian International Minister Andriy Sybiha urged allies to extend strain on Moscow and to take “extra steps to strengthen Ukraine” in response to Russia’s newest assaults.
Six people were killed and 80 injured across Ukraine the previous night, when Russia attacked the nation with greater than 400 drones and almost 40 missiles.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described the assault as a “large strike on cities and unusual life” in “virtually all of Ukraine”, together with capital Kyiv.
Strikes additionally hit the northern metropolis of Chernihiv, in addition to Lutsk and Ternopil within the north-west, with Moscow claiming navy websites had been focused.
Throughout the latest round of direct talks in Istanbul earlier this week, the 2 warring sides agreed to trade all sick and closely wounded prisoners of battle, these aged below 25, in addition to the our bodies of 12,000 troopers.
Moscow’s chief negotiator on the assembly, Vladimir Medinsky, claimed on Saturday that Ukraine had “unexpectedly postponed each the acceptance of our bodies and the trade of prisoners of battle for an indefinite interval”.
However Petro Yatsensko, of Ukraine’s Coordination for PoWS HQ, stated this was “not true” and stated the trade had been rescheduled to happen subsequent week.
A press release from his workplace added that preparations had been below manner for the trade.
Ukraine accused Moscow of enjoying “soiled video games”, and alleged that Russia was not sticking to the agreed parameters of the PoW swap.
No particular dates have been introduced for the exchanges to happen.
Medinsky additionally claimed that the our bodies of a couple of hundreds slain Ukrainian troopers had been taken to an agreed trade level however that Ukrainian officers by no means arrived.
An inventory of 640 prisoners of battle had additionally been handed to Ukraine “with a purpose to start the trade”, Medinsky wrote on social media.
The barrages over the previous two nights got here after Ukrainian drone strikes focused Russian strategic warplanes at 4 air bases deep inside Russia.
Ukraine’s safety service SBU stated at the least 40 Russian plane had been struck in the course of the so-called “Operation Spider’s Web” last Sunday.
Ukraine says it used 117 drones that had been first smuggled into Russia, then positioned inside picket cabins mounted on the again of lorries and hid beneath remotely operated removable roofs.
The lorries had been then apparently pushed to places close to the Russian air bases by drivers who had been seemingly unaware of their cargo. The drones had been then launched remotely.
US President Donald Trump stated on Friday that the Ukrainians had given Russian President Vladimir Putin “a motive to go in and bomb the hell out of them final evening”.
Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. It presently controls round 20% of Ukrainian territory, together with the Crimean peninsula it annexed in 2014.
