Russia hits Ukraine’s Kharkiv with deadly barrage of drones

A concentrated, nine-minute-long Russian drone attack on Ukraine's second-largest city of Kharkiv on Wednesday killed six people and injured 64, including nine children, Ukrainian officials said.

The attack followed Russia's two biggest air assaults of the war on Ukraine this week, part of intensified bombardments that Moscow says are retaliatory measures for Kyiv's recent attacks in Russia.

A new wave of drone attacks on four city districts was reported early on Thursday by Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov, including a drone that landed in a school courtyard and smashed windows. There were no other reports of casualties or damage.

Elsewhere, two southern Ukrainian regions, Mykolaiv and Kherson, were left without electricity on Wednesday after Russian forces attacked an energy facility, the governors said.

Kharkiv, in Ukraine's northeast, withstood Russia's full-scale advance in the early days of the war but has since been a regular target of drone, missile and guided aerial bomb assaults.

Prosecutors in Kharkiv region said on the Telegram messaging app that the death toll in Tuesday night's incidents had risen to six as rescue teams pulled bodies from under the rubble. They said three people were still believed to be trapped.

The strikes by 17 drones on Kharkiv sparked fires in 15 units of a five-storey apartment block and caused other damage in the city close to the Russian border, Mayor Terekhov said.

"There are direct hits on multi-storey buildings, private homes, playgrounds, enterprises and public transport," Terekhov said on the Telegram messaging app.

"Every new day now brings new despicable blows from Russia, and almost every blow is telling. Russia deserves increased pressure; with literally every blow it strikes against ordinary life, it proves that the pressure is not enough," President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Telegram.

A Reuters witness saw emergency rescuers helping to carry people out of damaged buildings and administering care, while firefighters battled blazes in the dark.

Nine of the injured, including a 2-year-old girl and a 15-year-old boy, have been hospitalised, Oleh Sinehubov, the governor of the broader Kharkiv region, said on Telegram.

In total, the Ukrainian military said Russia had launched 85 drones overnight, 40 of which were shot down.