Russia launches deadly drone attack on Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine

A Russian drone attack struck residential buildings in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv and an energy facility in the surrounding region on Thursday, killing four people and severing power for 350,000 residents, officials said.

Ukraine's second-largest city, which lies some 30 kilometres from the Russian border, has been bombed heavily during the 25-month war and been one of the worst afflicted as Russia has renewed its missile and drone attacks on the energy system.

Gov.Oleh Synehubov said three rescue workers had been killed in a repeat strike after they reached a residential block hit in one attack. Writing on the Telegram messaging app, he said 12 people were injured, with three in serious condition.

One of the killed rescuers was a 52-year-old firefighter whose son, also a firefighter, had been putting out a fire several buildings away, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said.

Realizing his father had been killed, the son, Volodymyr, knelt on the ground and wept as two emergency workers consoled him, video shared by Klymenko showed.

Under floodlights in the night, rescuers raced to free a resident trapped under rubble and ladders reached up from fire trucks to shattered apartments at the top of high-rise blocks.

"Windows, all of the glass, everything was knocked out. There's nothing left," Zhanetta Kravchenko, a 77-year-old resident, told Reuters. "We are alive, at least, and I'm grateful for that."

Wave of energy grid attacks: Ukraine officials

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the attack "despicable and cynical" in a statement on X, repeating his call to Ukraine's allies to supply more air defences.

Russia used at least 15 drones in the Kharkiv attacks, Synehubov said. The military shot down 11 Shahed drones out of 20 launched at the country overnight, the General Staff said.

Broadcaster Suspilne reported that one of the strikes caused serious damage to apartments on three floors of a 14-storey building. It said emergency crews had been unable to work for at least an hour for fear of further strikes.

Residential buildings, stores, a medical facility and cars were damaged in the attack, the Kharkiv prosecutor's office said on Telegram.

Drones also hit the Zmiivska thermal power plant in the region, Synehubov said, keeping up pressure on an energy system that has come under repeated attack from airstrikes in recent weeks.

"In Kharkiv and areas of the region, around 350,000 consumers have been disconnected," the Ukrenergo grid operator said in a statement.

"Shahed attacks on energy facilities take place almost every day," Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, head of national grid operator Ukrenergo, told a news conference. "The intensity of the attacks has increased."

Russian forces also hit a solar power plant in Dnipropetrovsk region, causing a fire which has since been put out, the Energy Ministry said. Some limits on energy consumption were put in place in the region in the morning, the officials said.

The latter strike likely marked the first targeted attack on a solar power plant by Russian forces, Kudrytskyi said.

Russia targeted Ukraine's critical energy infrastructure with more than 150 missiles and over 240 Shahed drones between March 22-29 of this year, according to the statement from Ukrainian parliament's committee on energy, housing and utilities services.

These attacks severely damaged or destroyed at least eight power plants and several dozen substations, immediately cutting off over twomillion citizens from electricity, heat and water supply, the statement said.

Reuters was unable to independently verify the accounts. Russia denies deliberately targeting civilians in the war in which it is focusing on capturing eastern and southern parts of Ukraine.

WATCH l From Kharkiv to B.C., the Babaieva family on their refugee journey:

Ukrainian family talks about life in Canada after fleeing home

4 months ago

Duration 7:47

Its been a little over two years since Russia invaded Ukraine, and thousands of refugees have come to Canada since then. The Babaieva family settled in Vancouver last summer after a long journey from their home in Kharkiv. The CBCs Gurpreet Kambo caught up with them to talk about fleeing war and their life in Canada.

Russia slams NATO

The attacks came as NATO marked its 75th anniversary on Thursday in Brussels.

In Moscow, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters that NATO was "already involved in the conflict surrounding Ukraine [and] continues to move towards our borders and expand its military infrastructure towards our borders," he said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly said that Russia was cheated by the West in the aftermath of the Cold War as Moscow's Warsaw Pact alliance was disbanded but NATO moved eastwards by taking in former pact members and the three Baltic states that had been part of the Soviet Union.

The West rejects that version, saying NATO is a defensive alliance and joining it was a democratic choice by countries that had shaken off decades of Communist rule.

NATO says it is helping Ukraine fight for its survival in the face of Russian aggression, and has provided Kyiv with advanced weapons, training and intelligence.

Russia says that makes NATO de facto a party to the conflict. Putin said in February that a direct conflict between Russia and NATO would mean the planet was one step away from World War Three.