Russian attack on apartment building kills at least eight people in Ukraine, including mothers and young children

At least eight people, including two children, were killed and 10 others wounded Saturday by a Russian missile that hit a five-story residential building in Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, officials said.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned the attack and called for an international response. It said Russia attacked Ukraine overnight with 29 missiles and 480 drones, targeting energy facilities in kyiv and other central regions and with damage reported in at least seven other locations across the country.

According to preliminary data, air defense systems shot down 19 missiles and 453 drones, and hits by 9 missiles and 26 attack drones were recorded in 22 locations.

In Kharkiv, in northeastern Ukraine, emergency workers were combing the rubble for survivors. The dead included an elementary school teacher and her son, a second-grade student, who were killed in their home, and an eighth-grade student who also died with his mother, according to the city’s mayor, Ihor Terekhov.

The regional prosecutor’s office said the building was hit by a new Russian cruise missile known as the Izdeliye-30. Ukrainian reports say the new subsonic air-launched weapon that Russia has recently begun using against Ukraine has a range of 930 miles and is equipped with a new, more jam-resistant satellite navigation system.

In the kyiv region, debris damage was reported in three districts, according to local authorities. In the southern region of Odessa, 80 firefighters were called to help fight massive fires at infrastructure facilities following a multiple drone attack. Ukraine’s state rail operator Ukrzaliznytsia said damage to rail infrastructure forced changes to several routes in the country’s central-west.

“There must be a response from partners to these savage attacks on life,” Zelenskyy said on social media. “Russia has not abandoned its attempts to destroy Ukraine’s residential and critical infrastructure and therefore support must continue. We are actively working with the European Union to ensure greater protection for our people. I thank everyone who helps strengthen our protection.”

In Moscow, the Russian Defense Ministry said the overnight attack targeted Ukrainian military factories, energy facilities and air bases.

Russia has fired tens of thousands of Iranian-designed drones at Ukraine since it invaded its neighbor just over four years ago. It has launched a large-scale domestic production of them and hit Ukraine with hundreds of drones in a single night, more than were used for a few entire months in 2024.

Iran has responded to joint US-Israeli attacks by launching the same type of Shahed drones against Middle Eastern countries. Sources have told News themezone that Russia is providing intelligence to Iran about US positions in the Middle East. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told “60 Minutes” that President Trump is “very aware of who talks to who” and said that “anything that shouldn’t be happening” is being “strongly confronted.”

Zelenskyy said he had received a request for support from the United States to defend against Iranian drones in the Middle East and had ordered the supply of equipment together with Ukrainian experts.

He war in the middle east has diverted international attention from Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II and forced the postponement of a new round of US-brokered talks between Russia and Ukraine scheduled for this week.