Six killed in Russian attack on Kharkiv as Ukraine strikes Russian port

Six people were killed and at least 24 were injured in Russian missile strikes on the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv overnight, the regional prosecutor’s office announced on Friday.

Three of the victims, including two children, were killed when a missile hit a five-storey residential building, regional Governor Oleh Synyehubov said on Friday morning, while one more person was killed in a strike on a two-storey industrial building.

Synyehubov later reported that a fifth body had been recovered from the ruins of one of the targeted buildings. The sixth death was announced on Friday afternoon.

Kharkiv authorities had earlier said that up to four bodies could still be buried under the rubble from the attacks, which Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov called “pure terrorism”.

Synyehubov said that Russia had carried out a double-tap strike, following up an initial missile strike with a second one on the same target, “while medics, rescuers and law enforcement were already on the scene”.

Ukraine’s public broadcaster Suspilne said that Russia had struck Kharkiv at least five times overnight, with two initial missile attacks just before midnight local time that were followed by three more around 20 minutes later.

The Ukrainian Air Force said that Russia had used five anti-aircraft missiles launched from its Belgorod region in the attack on Kharkiv, adding that it had downed one more Russian missile aimed at the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, as well as four Shahed attack drones overnight.

The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said in a statement on Friday morning that it had launched a “coordinated” attack on military targets in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region, using Neptune coastal defence missiles to damage an oil depot and ferry crossing in the region’s Port Kavkaz harbour on the Kerch Strait, which Russia uses to supply annexed Crimea as well as Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine.

Authorities in the Krasnodar region had earlier reported that two people had been injured in a Ukrainian drone strike on another oil depot near the Kerch Strait and that emergency services were searching for debris in Novorossiysk after Russia’s air defences downed drones over the port city, where much of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet is currently stationed.

“Russia’s ‘modern’ and ‘effective’ air defences once again proved powerless against our missiles and drone systems, failing to protect the Russian army’s critical logistics and supply facilities”, the General Staff statement said.