Russian drone attacks kill 5 in northern Ukraine
Civilian casualties continue to mount in Ukraine, with a new wave of Russian drone strikes killing five people in the country’s north.
Ukraine’s Air Force said that Russia conducted a series of airstrikes from Wednesday night to Thursday morning, involving 103 drones and one ballistic missile.
Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said that drone attacks in the northern region of Chernihiv left five people dead, including a one-year-old child, and six others injured.
He said that two residential areas in the eastern city of Kharkiv were also attacked by drones. Eighteen people, including four children, were injured.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned the Russian airstrikes in a social media post on Thursday. He accused Russia of constantly trying to buy time in order to continue its killings. He said the world must put pressure on Moscow by every means available.
In a phone call on Wednesday with US President Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin reportedly hinted at retaliation over Ukrainian attacks on Russian military airfields.
Reuters news agency reported on this Ukrainian drone operation, referred to as the “Spider Web,” on Wednesday.
It quoted two US government officials who estimated that up to 20 warplanes were hit, with 10 of them destroyed. Reuters said that those figures are about half of Ukraine’s claim.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said in an interview with Russia’s state-run TASS news agency that the aircraft in question were not destroyed but damaged, and that they would be repaired.
