Russia has hit a high-rise apartment block and a bakery in Ukraine’s northeastern city of Kharkiv with guided bombs, killing at least three people and injuring 31 more, with others feared trapped under rubble, authorities said. The targets of the Russian bombs were an apartment building, a bakery, a stadium. In other words, the everyday life of ordinary people, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on X. the strike took place just as world leaders gathered in New York for the United Nations General Assembly.
There is much discussion now at the UN General Assembly about collective efforts for security and the future. But we just need to stop the terror. To have security. To have afuture, Mr Zelensky, who was attending the gathering, said. Images from the site showed a hole blown through the nine-storey apartment block, several floors of it totally destroyed. The building was hit directly, local officials said. Kharkiv mayor Ihor Terekhov said on the Telegram messenger that it had already been attacked by Russia at the start of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
It was almost repaired, windows were installed, it was insulated, and prepared for the heating season. The enemy hit it a second time,” Terekhov said, adding that the section of the building that suffered most damage was housing 82 people.
A 17-year-old was among the injured and four other people were in a serious condition, said the regional governor, Oleh Syniehubov. Russia launched eight guided bombs, six of which hit Kharkiv, regional prosecutors said on Telegram. The most densely populated area of the city was targeted, according to Terekhov.
Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, and the surrounding region regularly come under Russian attacks. Moscow’s troops extensively use highly destructive guided bombs that Ukrainian air defences struggle to intercept. Kyiv, which is pressing allies to allow deep strikes into Russia, says the most effective means of reducing the attacks is to target not the bombs themselves but planes and airfields hosting them.
We are counting on the courage to allow us to attack military targets in enemy territory with Western weapons. This is crucial to protect the people, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said, commenting on Tuesday’s deadly strikes.
Russia denies intentionally targeting civilians although it has killed thousands of them during more than two-and-a-half years of war. President Zelensky said his country is closer to the end of the war with Russia, according to excerpts of an interview with US broadcaster ABC News.
I think that we are closer to the peace than we think, he was quoted as saying. We are closer to the end of the war. In the interview, he urged the United States and other partners to continue supporting Ukraine.
The full-scale Russia invasion of Ukraine, which began in February 2022 in what Moscow called a special operation, has caused the deaths of tens of thousands of people, uprooted millions more and devastated Ukrainian towns and cities.
The Ukrainian leader said that only from a “strong position” can Ukraine push Russian President Vladimir Putin to stop the war.
Mr Zelensky arrived in the United States on Sunday to attend sessions at the UN General Assembly and urged his partners to help achieve a shared victory for a truly just peace. Washington and its allies have provided a multi-billion-dollar assistance programme to Ukraine since the Russian invasion began while also imposing several rounds of sanctions against Moscow.
Mr Putin has said peace talks can begin only if Kyiv abandons swathes of eastern and southern Ukraine to Russia and drops its NATO membership ambitions. Mr Zelensky has called repeatedly for a withdrawal of all Russian troops, and the restoration of Ukraine’s post-Soviet borders. Kyiv began a cross-border attack on 6 August into Russia’s western Kursk region. Ukraine has said the action is intended partly to prevent Russian forces in the area from launching their own incursion across the border into Ukraine.
Ennywealth
