Russian drones attack Kharkiv, Ukraine's second largest city, killing 7 – Winnipeg Free Press

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Seven people, including three children, were killed in a Russian drone strike in Ukraine's second-largest city Kharkiv overnight, Kharkiv Oblast Governor Oleh Synahubov said Saturday. Three other people were injured, officials said.

According to him, at least 10 drones were launched in Kharkiv, eight of which were shot down. According to him, civil infrastructure was damaged in the Nemyshlyan district of the city, as a result of which there was a large-scale fire in which 15 private houses were burnt.

According to Synahubov, the oil base was hit and the fuel leaked, as a result of which a fire broke out. In a Facebook post, Sergei Bolvinov, head of the investigation department of the National Police, said that the local resident saw “real hell: first the fuel leaked, then everything burned.”

According to Bolvinov, a family of five people, including children aged 7, 4 and nine months, were trapped in their house during the fire and burned alive. He said two other adults died in a fire at another house that was also gutted.

The Minister of Internal Affairs, Igor Klymenko, said that more than 50 people were evacuated, and emergency workers extinguished the fire on Saturday morning.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy expressed his condolences to the relatives of all the victims in an online statement and said, “terror does not go unpunished.” Terror cannot go unanswered. Terrorists must lose the war they started. Russia must answer for every life it has destroyed and destroyed.”

Ukraine's air force said its air defense systems destroyed 23 of the 31 Iranian Shahed drones launched by Russia overnight. The drones mainly targeted the northeastern Kharkiv region and the southern Odesa province, the report said.

Odesa Region Governor Oleh Kiper said four people were injured in drone attacks overnight.

According to him, the attacks took place in three waves. The first targeted the port city of Odesa, the capital of the region. All nine drones were shot down, but the debris damaged port infrastructure and injured one person.

The second and third waves targeted port infrastructure in the Danube River region, Kiper said. A total of 12 drones were shot down and three people were injured.

The Romanian Ministry of National Defense announced on Saturday that Russia attacked the Ismail and Reni river ports of Ukraine on the border with Romania overnight with drones.

The ministry announced that the Turkish Air Force F-16 jet was taken out of the Romanian airbase around 1:15 a.m. to carry out “reconnaissance missions” in the national airspace to monitor the situation. Text alerts were also sent to residents of two counties adjacent to the attacks.