Kharkiv hit by ‘most powerful attack’ of entire war, mayor says, as Russia pounds Ukraine again

CNN
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Massive Russian strikes on Ukraine’s second-largest city killed at least five people on Saturday, officials said, one night after Moscow carried out one of the war’s largest aerial assaults on Ukraine.

Russia has conducted extensive attacks on Ukraine in recent days, in what is being viewed as retaliation for an audacious drone operation by Kyiv that debilitated more than a third of Moscow’s strategic cruise missile carriers.

The northeastern city of Kharkiv – which sits about 30 kilometers (19 miles) from the Russian border – was shaken by “at least 40 explosions” in the early hours of Saturday, according to a Telegram post by Mayor Igor Terekhov.

“Kharkiv is currently experiencing the most powerful attack since the start of the full-scale war,” Terekhov said. “The enemy is striking simultaneously with missiles, (drones) and guided aerial bombs. This is outright terror against peaceful Kharkiv.”

Video released by emergency services showed a large fire burning in a multi-story apartment block in the Osnovyanskyi district in the city’s southwest, where Terekhov said two people had died. One person was also killed in a strike that hit a house in the Kyivskyi district to the north, he said.

Russia resumed its assault on Saturday evening. It launched a fresh round of strikes using glide bombs, killing another two people and injuring at least 40 others, according to Ukrainian officials.

Those killed were a woman and 62-year-old man, officials said. Two other victims of the attack are in intensive care in “extremely serious condition,” according to Oleh Syniehubov, the head of the Kharkiv region military administration.

The target of the second attack was a children’s playground with a miniature railway, Terekhov said.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky called the Saturday evening attack “pure terrorism” in a post on Telegram.

“Air bombs on civilians in the city – even a children’s railway nearby. This makes no military sense. Pure terrorism,” he said in the post. “This cannot be ignored. We cannot turn a blind eye to this… Every day we lose our people just because Russia feels impunity. We need tough pressure on Russia to make peace.”

In his daily address later Saturday, Zelensky said that “the Russians are preparing to continue the war and ignore all peace proposals. They must be held accountable for this.”

The Ukrainian leader also called on the United States to send “positive” and “specific signals” related to his country’s air defense. Kyiv has extended an offer to the US to buy air defense systems, Zelensky said, but it has not yet received a response.

Last week, the Pentagon notified Congress that it will be diverting critical anti-drone technology that had been allocated for Ukraine to US Air Force units in the Middle East, according to correspondence obtained by CNN and people familiar with the matter.

Russia said earlier Saturday that its forces carried out high-precision strikes overnight on Ukrainian military facilities. “The strikes achieved their objectives. All designated targets were destroyed,” the Russian Ministry of Defense posted on Telegram.

More than 50 drones, four guided aerial bombs and a missile were used in the attack which also damaged an administrative building and music school in the city, according to Kharkiv region prosecutor’s office.

Among the injured include a 14-year-old girl and a one-and-a-half-month-old boy, who is suffering from “acute stress,” the office added.

Ruslana Sheveleva, a Kharkiv resident whose neighbors’ house was struck in the attack, described the chaotic scenes as people scrambled to escape the building. “The house was hit, right where this young man was lying,” she told Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne.

“I don’t think he even understood what was happening. He died instantly. They dug his mother out from under the rubble. His father, as I understand it, managed to get out almost on his own,” she added.

Iryna Ivanenko, another resident, said her 26-year-old daughter – who was later rescued by firefighters – begged her for help, trapped in her bedroom under a heavy slab. “I tried to lift the slab, but it was impossible,” Ivanenko told Suspline.

Meanwhile, Russia accused Ukraine on Saturday of postponing the exchange of prisoners of war and transfer of deceased soldiers for an “indefinite” period.

“The Ukrainian side unexpectedly postponed the transfer of bodies and the exchange of prisoners of war for an indefinite period,” Kremlin aide Vladimir Medinsky posted on Telegram. “For some reason, their negotiating team didn’t even show up at the exchange point.”

An agreement to work towards another prisoner swap was reached in Istanbul on Monday during a second round of peace talks between Russian and Ukrainian officials.

Medinsky – the head of Russia’s delegation for the talks in Istanbul – claimed Saturday that Moscow had given Ukraine a list of 640 wounded, seriously ill and young prisoners of war to be exchanged.

In addition, Russia has begun the repatriation of more than 6,000 bodies of Ukrainian soldiers, Medinsky said. “The first batch of 1,212 frozen bodies of Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers has already arrived in refrigerated trucks at the exchange point. The rest are on their way,” he said.

Ukraine accused Russia of playing “dirty games.”

“Today’s statements by the Russian side do not correspond to reality or to previous agreements on either the exchange of prisoners or the repatriation of bodies,” Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War said Saturday.

The authority said that Ukraine has submitted a list of seriously wounded, ill and young servicemen to be exchanged, but claimed that Russia’s lists “do not comply with the agreed approach.”

“Ukraine has provided relevant comments, and the next step is now awaited from the Russian side,” the authority said.

Commenting on the repatriation of soldiers’ bodies, the authority said that “an agreement has indeed been reached,” but added that no date has been set for the transfer to take place.

On Saturday evening, Yevgeny Balitsky, the Russian-appointed governor of the occupied parts of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, said that Moscow would publish the names of the Ukrainian soldiers whose bodies were reportedly supposed to be returned that day.

In a post on Telegram, Balitsky accused Kyiv of not carrying out what it had previously agreed to do.

“What is there to discuss if Ukraine refuses to accept the bodies of its dead, the agreement about which was reached during the second stage of negotiations,” he asked.

Several swaps have previously taken place between the two sides despite the ongoing conflict.

Also on Saturday, Ukraine’s air force said that it had shot down a Russian Su-35 fighter jet as part of a “successful Air Force operation in the Kursk direction.”

Russia did not immediately comment on the claim, but a Russian military blogger described the plane as lost and said that the pilot had been rescued.

A day before the assualt on Kharkiv, in an apparent retaliation to Ukraine’s drone swarm, Russia launched a barrage of drones and ballistic missiles across broad swaths of Ukraine, killing at least six people and injuring dozens of others.

“They gave (Russian President Vladimir) Putin a reason to go in and bomb the hell out of them last night,” US President Donald Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One late on Friday.

Trump had earlier warned Russian retaliation was imminent, after speaking with his Russian counterpart on Wednesday.

It was not immediately clear if Putin intends further escalation.