Ukraine: Deadly new Russian strike on Kharkiv kills 10-year-old and grandmother; Zelensky aide pleads for more air defence before winter
- Rescuers found the body of a 68-year-old woman, her 10-year-old grandson and his injured 11-month-old brother
- Support is needed ahead of a ‘very difficult’ period when Russia will renew shelling [and] endangering lives’, Zelensky’s deputy chief of staff said
A 10-year-old and his grandmother were killed on Friday when Russian missiles smashed into Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine, just hours after another attack left dozens dead at a wake in a nearby village.
Rescuers in Kharkiv were extinguishing fires next to charred vehicles, and twisted missile fragments lay in a deep crater in the centre of the city, a journalist at the scene said.
Multiple-storey buildings surrounding the debris-strewn blast site were scarred by the impact of two cruise missiles, with dozens of windows blown out. Dazed residents walked beneath the skeletal housing blocks.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said the attack had killed a 10-year-old boy and described the strikes as another example of “Russian terror” in a statement offering condolences to the child’s family.
Kharkiv regional governor Oleg Synegubov said later that municipal workers had retrieved another body.
“Rescuers found the body of a 68-year-old woman – the grandmother of the killed 10-year-old boy and his injured 11-month-old brother,” he said.
