3 dead in Kharkiv bombing as Russia fires missiles at Ukrainian energy facilities | News

KIEV, Ukraine – At least three people were killed in a Russian bombing raid on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, on Saturday afternoon, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

Another 38 people were injured in the attack, said Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov. Four aerial bombs were fired at the city, damaging residential buildings, shops and public transport stops, said Kharkiv Region Governor Oleh Syniehubov. He said four of the injured were in serious condition.

“This Russian terror with guided aerial bombs must and can be stopped. Our partners need to make bold decisions so that we can destroy Russian terrorists and Russian fighter jets where they are,” Zelensky wrote on the messaging app Telegram.

Zelensky said last month that Ukraine urgently needs at least seven more Patriot missile systems to counter Russian attacks on the power grid and civilian areas, as well as on military targets with devastating glide bombs that cause widespread destruction.

Russia also continued to target Ukraine’s energy infrastructure overnight with a new missile and drone attack, officials in Kyiv said. The attacks damaged energy facilities in the southeast and west and injured at least two workers.

Ukraine is battling a new wave of power outages after Russian attacks on energy infrastructure began three months ago and knocked out half the country’s electricity generation capacity. Ukrainian air defenses intercepted 12 of the 16 missiles and all 13 drones launched by Russia, the air force said.

State-owned power grid operator Ukrenergo said the strikes had damaged equipment at plants in southeastern Zaporizhia and the western Lviv region. Two energy workers were injured in Zaporizhia when a fire broke out at an energy facility, according to the region’s governor Ivan Fedorov.

With no major changes reported along the 1,000-kilometer-long front line and a recent advance by Kremlin forces in eastern and northeastern Ukraine achieving only minor success, both sides have now targeted infrastructure and sought to limit the other’s ability to fight in a war now in its third year.

Moscow’s nighttime attack on Zaporizhia and Lviv was followed by Ukrainian military strikes on three oil refineries in southern Russia on Friday night.

The Russian Defense Ministry said air defenses had destroyed five drones over the Sea of ​​Azov and the western regions of Bryansk and Smolensk. One man was killed in an attack on the Russian region of Belgorod, which borders Ukraine, said the region’s governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov.

The governor of the partially occupied Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine said on Saturday that five people were killed and seven injured in Russian attacks the previous day.

In the Russian-controlled part of the region, Moscow-appointed governor Denis Pushilin said three people were killed and four injured in an attack by Ukrainian forces on Saturday morning.

A police officer was killed in a Russian drone attack on a checkpoint in the partially occupied Kherson region, the Ukrainian National Police said.

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine.

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