At least six people were killed and 16 others wounded in Kharkiv in a ‘Russian attack’ on Wednesday, claimed the governor of the region, reports Al Jazeera.
Ukrain president Volodymyr Zelensky hugely condemned the Russian attack for this ‘despicable and cynical’ act.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said a block of flats had been “totally destroyed” in Wednesday night’s attack, which he said “had no justification and shows the powerlessness of the aggressor”.
“We will not forgive, we will take revenge”, he wrote on the Telegram app.
The raid started a fire in the building in the northeastern city, Mayor Igor Terekhov said on Telegram.
Zelenskyy’s media team shared footage of the aftermath of the attack, showing emergency services gathered outside the blazing building. A voice on the video described the scene and said many people remained unaccounted for.
Kharkiv was a Russian target in the early days of the war, but its soldiers were not able to take the city. While Moscow has now shifted its military focus to Ukraine’s east and south, Kharkiv continues to suffer attacks from the air.
Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, claiming it needed to ‘demilitarize’ its neighbor and protect Russian-speaking communities there, but thousands have been killed, and millions of Ukrainians have fled.
Ukraine, which broke free of Russian rule when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, has accused Moscow of waging an imperial-style war of conquest.
Moscow annexed the southern peninsula of Crimea in 2014 and has supported separatist territories in Donetsk and Luhansk.
Bdpratidin English/Lutful Hoque
