Firefighters work at a site of a private house, destroyed during a Russian missile attack, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kharkiv, on July 24.Vyacheslav Madiyevskyy/Reuters
Russia fired a series of ballistic missiles at the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Wednesday, wounding at least six people and damaging the office of a Swiss mine-clearing NGO, local officials said.
Ukraine’s second-largest city and the surrounding region, which borders Russia, have been battered by drone, missile and guided-bomb attacks since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
The region’s governor, Oleh Syniehubov, said an overnight strike destroyed the facade of the Fondation suisse de déminage’s office and the ceilings of several of its floors.
Six cars used by the group’s medics were damaged, he said, noting the importance of demining initiatives in his region, one of the most densely strewn with landmines and other potentially harmful war detritus.
Mayor Ihor Terekhov said there had been five separate strikes on the city since Russia’s overnight attack.
The latest one hit an industrial area and injured six people, he said. Police said unspecified infrastructure was destroyed in this attack, including damage to vehicles.
Russia denies deliberately targeting civilians but thousands have been killed and injured in its 29-month-old invasion of Ukraine.
A Russian drone attack damaged port infrastructure and commercial and residential buildings early on Wednesday, wounding three people in the southern Ukrainian city of Izmail on the River Danube, local officials said.
The attack damaged several buildings in the port, caused a fire and also damaged three trucks, Oleh Kiper, governor of the Odesa region, said in a statement.
A five-storey residential building was damaged during the attacks that smashed its windows and stairwells, and ruined a part of its facade, officials said.
Ukrainian air defences shot down 17 of 23 drones that were launched from Russian territory and the occupied Crimean peninsular, which Moscow seized and annexed in 2014, the air force said.
Most of the drones were downed over the southern Odesa region, it said.
“The enemy attacked the southern regions with attack drones. Port infrastructure has been their target again,” the southern military command said on the Telegram messaging app.
Izmail and other ports of the Danube river are important routes for Ukraine to import fuel.
Demand for fuel is rising in Ukraine as businesses and residents increasingly depend on generators to produce electricity during extended blackouts.
Since March, Russia has intensified its missile and drone attacks on the Ukrainian power sector and other energy infrastructure, knocking out about half of available generation capacity and resulting in long blackouts across the country.