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FOUR DEAD AND SEVENTEEN INJURED IN DRONE ATTACK ON KHARKIV
Russian drones struck the districts of Shevchenkivskyi, Saltivskyi, and Kholodnogirskyi, according to the press service of Kharkiv police, initially reporting that private houses, apartment buildings, a garden association and a civilian enterprise had been damaged, while fires had also broken out in several areas.
Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov reported last night that there were 15 strikes recorded from the Situation Centre, where three residential buildings had been completely destroyed, while a transformer to a substation was damaged, and there was a hit on the heating supply network.
Two residents died in their private residential houses, Terekhov continued, adding that a security guard died at a nearby civilian enterprise that had also received a hit, later confirming that damage had been caused to critical infrastructure during the attack.
“The energy sector, and our heat supply network, were primarily seriously damaged. We are now working so that people do not feel this,” Terekhov told Suspilne last night, while head of the Regional Military Administration Oleg Synegubov told journalists that there had been power outages, and relevant services were working to stabilise the situation.
Synegubov confirmed that a 61-year-old woman, a 41-year-old woman, a 69-year-old woman, and a 55-year-old man were killed in the attack, along with injuries to seventeen people, with two admitted to hospital, while seven including two children aged 11 and 12 experienced acute shock.
One woman who died was in the kitchen at the moment of the strike and her body had been found by rescuers, reported Commander of the Rapid Response Unit of the Ukrainian Red Cross Society Ihor Klymenko.
“There were children, but when the first ‘Shahed’ started to fall, they ran out. The children are alive, thank God, the husband is alive, the woman died, unfortunately.”
Natalia, 23, was visiting her sister in the Shevchenkivskyi district when she was killed, because as the shelling had started Natalia was talking to her son, telling him that there had been a hit on a nearby building, went outside to look, telling him the windows had been blown out.
“And then I hear again that a ‘Shahed’ is flying. She says, ‘It’s descending,’ and starts to panic. And ‘bang’ – she screamed and then the connection was lost,” said the deceased’s son Oleksandr Balakiytskyi.
Emergency services stated that two more people had died in their homes during the attacks.
However, in what appeared to be a miracle, the third house that had been destroyed in the Shevchenkivskyi district belonged to 77-year-old Volodymyr Kravtsov, who managed to escape with some injuries.
“I was in the room. I went to the window to look. The strike. I dodged, everything flew at me. I closed myself off. Then I smelled burning, it was on fire. Smoke. There had already been several powerful strikes before. I thought the ceiling would collapse. And this strike was the last. Everything burned down,” Volodymyr said.
