A Russian offensive on Wednesday resulted in the deaths of at least four people in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, with a minimum of 28 others injured, according to Ukrainian authorities. “The occupiers killed a child right on the playground,” stated Kharkiv’s Mayor Ihor Terekhov in a message shared on Telegram, a popular messaging platform. Terekhov added that three more individuals were killed in a 12-story apartment building that caught fire as a result of the attack. A video from the scene, shared by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s Chief of Staff Andriy Yermak, showed huge flames and thick black smoke rising from the upper floors of the building. “The Russians struck civilians again,” Yermak said on Telegram.
As Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv and the surrounding region have long been targets of Russian attacks, particularly from guided bombs that are both maintained and destructive. Moscow’s forces attempted to seize Kharkiv in the initial phases of the invasion but were repelled. New ground offensives in the Kharkiv region were initiated in May.
“We need strong decisions from our partners to stop this terror,” said Zelenskyy in a social media post. “We need long-range capabilities,” he added, referring to Kyiv’s call for allies to lift restrictions on the use of Western-supplied missiles within Russian territory. “We need the implementation of air defense agreements for Ukraine. It is about saving lives,” he further emphasized.
Earlier in the day, Russian attacks in the neighboring Sumy region resulted in at least two fatalities and eight injuries, according to local authorities. The Kremlin has repeatedly denied that its forces target civilian infrastructure in Ukraine.
Furthermore, Russia has reported that its forces have captured three additional villages in eastern Ukraine as they continue their advance, while Kyiv launches a significant cross-border offensive into Russian territory. According to Russia’s Defense Ministry, they have seized settlements in the Donetsk, Luhansk, and Kharkiv regions.
Moscow appears to be focusing its firepower on the key logistical hub of Pokrovsk, where Kyiv indicates that fighting is intense and “difficult.” “The most challenging situation remains in the Pokrovsk direction. The enemy is attempting to break through our defensive lines,” stated Ukraine’s top commander Oleksandr Syrskii.
Overall, Kyiv’s forces continue to push forward in the western Kursk region of Russia, where they claimed earlier this week to have taken control of 100 border settlements.
On the international front, EU defense ministers have decided that the bloc will train Ukrainian forces as close to Ukraine as possible, but not on Ukrainian territory. “We have agreed that the EU’s training mission will train 75,000 Ukrainian soldiers by the end of the year – having trained 60,000 so far,” stated the EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell following a ministerial meeting in Brussels. Some EU countries, including Estonia, France, and Sweden, support training soldiers in Ukraine, while others, such as Hungary, fear that such actions could lead to an escalation of the conflict.