Photo: Sergey Bobok Agence France-Presse A resident looks at the extent of the damage, his head in his hands, as rescuers evacuate the injured from a residential building hit by a bomb in Kharkiv.
Oleksandr Yanovsky – Agence France-Presse and Daria Andriievska – Agence France-Presse respectively in Kharkiv and kyiv
Posted at 1:43 p.m. Updated at 2:16 p.m.
- Europe
Russian strikes left three dead and around fifty injured on Saturday in Kharkiv, Ukraine's second city which is regularly bombed, authorities announced, after a night already marked by a “massive” attack against the fragile country's energy system.
The Russian army struck this town, close to its border, using four “guided aerial bombs”, weapons at devastating force, said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Telegram.
Three people died, a residential building having been hit, he lamented. Fifty-two other people were injured, including three teenage girls, the regional prosecutor's office said.
Kharkiv region governor Oleg Synegoubov said more early that four injured people were “in serious condition”, with medics “fighting for their lives”.
The building was gutted, all its windows blown out. Pieces of furniture and metal were scattered on the sidewalk along it, where a large hole indicated the probable impact of a bomb, near damaged cars.
A resident looked at the extent of the damage, head in hands, while rescuers evacuated the injured.
The body of a woman lay in front of a bus shelter, her bag still near her, noted an AFP journalist.
Dmytro, a resident, was in a room where “everything was completely blown away, there’s nothing left.” By a miracle, he escaped safely. But he said he was so “scared” that his hands and voice were still shaking.
2,400 bombs
The city of Kharkiv is often bereaved by Russian attacks.
Since the beginning of the month, the Russian army has used 2 400 guided aerial bombs, including 700 in the Kharkiv region alone, according to Volodymyr Zelensky.
The president, however, assured Saturday that Ukraine had succeeded, thanks to its Western partners, to destroy a “Russian missile launcher near the border”, securing the region.
At the end of May, Washington accepted that the Ukrainians would use American weapons to strike, in certain cases, targets on Russian territory close to this area.
This decision followed the launch, in early May, of a surprise land offensive by Russia in the Kharkiv region, where fighting remains violent.
Moscow said it had for aim of creating a buffer zone in order to better defend its territory against strikes from kyiv, in particular the Belgorod region, bordering that of Kharkiv.
A civilian was there killed by a Ukrainian strike on a farm, its governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Saturday.
Energy network struggling
During the night, the Ukrainian energy network, already in difficulty, was the target of a new Russian attack.
Facilities of Ukrenergo, a Ukrainian operator, were “damaged” in the Zaporizhia (south) and Lviv (west) regions, the Ukrainian Energy Ministry said.
< p>Ukrenergo said two of its employees were injured and hospitalized in Zaporizhia.
According to the ministry, this is the eighth “massive” attack against Ukrainian power plants over the past three months, leading to frequent power outages as the power grid struggled to withstand targeted Russian strikes.
The Russian Defense Ministry said on Saturday it had carried out a “grouped strike” against Ukrainian energy facilities, “in response” to Kiev's attacks on its own territory.
Russia, by increasing its attacks, has destroyed half of Ukraine's energy capacity, according to Mr. Zelensky.
kyiv is calling on its allies to help rebuild its electricity grid, a project that requires significant investment, and to provide it with more air defense equipment to counter Russian bombing.
The Russian occupation authorities in the Zaporizhia region also claimed that Ukrainian attacks had damaged a substation of the nuclear power plant, controlled by Russian troops, while ensuring that nuclear security was not compromised. was not affected.