The assault continued Moscow’s stepped-up drone and missile attacks, which have been ratcheting up for months with nightly bombardments on regions and cities in Ukraine.
An overnight Russian drone barrage that targeted Kharkiv, Ukraine, on Wednesday killed three people, set cars and buildings on fire and sent exhausted residents running to bomb shelters, according to the local authorities.
Russia has been increasing the scale of missile and drone attacks for months, with nightly attacks on various regions and cities in Ukraine despite pressure from the Trump administration to work on a cease-fire. On Tuesday, it hit Kyiv, the capital, with one of the most intensive drone barrages of the war.
On Wednesday, Ukraine’s Air Force reported that its air defense units had shot down 49 out of 85 drones launched by Russia during the overnight assault on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city. Russian forces also launched an Iskander-M ballistic missile from Russia’s Kursk region, according to the Ukrainian Air Force.
Most of the damage from the overnight assault was reported in Kharkiv, but the barrage also affected the Donetsk region, near the front line, and the Odesa region, the air force said. It confirmed strikes at 14 locations.
In addition to the three people killed in the drone attack on Kharkiv, 64 others were wounded, including nine children, according to the local police. The drones struck a bus depot, a private house and several multistory residential buildings. Fires broke out in apartments, as well as in parked vehicles and on a children’s playground.
Ukraine does not report strikes on military sites, so it was unclear whether any were hit in the assault.
Cease-fire talks appear stalled. The latest round of talks between the two sides, this month in Istanbul, yielded little result apart from another agreement to exchange 6,000 war dead and to continue prisoner swaps.
As part of that deal, Russia on Wednesday returned the bodies of 1,212 Ukrainian soldiers. The process began on Monday with the exchange of prisoners of war under the age of 25, followed by the return of severely wounded soldiers on Tuesday. Officials noted that final figures would be confirmed once the process was complete.
