KHARKIV, Ukraine — Russia has launched its most intense drone strike yet on Ukraine’s second-largest city, killing at least three people and injuring 21, including a baby and a teenage girl.
Explosions tore through Kharkiv in the early hours of Friday, as 48 Iranian-made Shahed drones, along with missiles and gliding bombs, rained down on residential areas.
“It was open terror,” said Ihor Terekhov, Kharkiv’s mayor. He confirmed that 18 apartment blocks and 13 private homes were hit.
Among the wounded was a 14-year-old girl, now in hospital, and an infant who survived what doctors called a “miracle escape”.
Kharkiv, home to more than a million residents, had been spared the worst of Russia’s aerial assaults in recent months. But the overnight blitz marked a grim shift.
The strike followed a vast wave of attacks across Ukraine on Thursday night, which Ukrainian officials said killed at least six people and wounded 80 more.
President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned what he called a “massive strike on cities and ordinary life”. He said attacks had stretched “across almost all of Ukraine”, including Kyiv, Chernihiv, Lutsk, and Ternopil.
A Violent Tit-for-Tat
Moscow claimed the strikes were retaliation for a daring Ukrainian operation that targeted Russian air bases hundreds of miles inside Russia last Sunday.
Ukraine’s security services say “Operation Spider’s Web” used 117 drones, many of them smuggled into Russia inside wooden crates hidden in lorries. The drivers, reportedly unaware of their cargo, dropped the payloads near air bases. The drones were then launched remotely, striking dozens of Russian warplanes.
Russia’s Ministry of Defence said Thursday’s barrage was a “response to terrorist attacks by the Kyiv regime”.
The scale and coordination of Ukraine’s drone assault, if confirmed, would mark one of the most sophisticated operations of the war. Ukrainian officials say at least 40 Russian aircraft were damaged or destroyed.
Civilian Toll Rises in the South
In Kherson, a city in Ukraine’s south still within range of Russian artillery, two people were killed Friday in separate shelling incidents. Local authorities said both victims were civilians.
Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha urged Western allies to step up support in the wake of the attacks. “This is not just Ukraine’s fight,” he said on X. “We need more steps to strengthen our defence and punish Russia’s continued aggression.”
Prisoner Swap Stalled
As bombs fell, diplomatic efforts took another hit. A long-discussed prisoner exchange agreed earlier this week in Istanbul appeared to stall amid claims and counterclaims.
Russia’s lead negotiator, Vladimir Medinsky, said on Saturday that Ukraine had “unexpectedly postponed” both the handover of prisoners and the return of soldiers’ bodies.
But Kyiv swiftly rejected that account.
“It’s simply not true,” said Petro Yatsenko, a spokesman for Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War. “The exchange is scheduled for next week. Preparations are ongoing.”
He accused Moscow of “playing dirty games”, suggesting Russia was shifting the goalposts after the talks.
Medinsky, writing on Telegram, claimed Russia had already transported more than 1,000 bodies of fallen Ukrainian soldiers to the designated handover point but that Ukraine never showed up.
He also said a list of 640 Ukrainian prisoners had been given to Kyiv.
No date has been officially confirmed for the exchange.
A War With No End in Sight
More than two years into Russia’s full-scale invasion, fighting continues on multiple fronts. Russia still holds about 20% of Ukrainian territory, including Crimea, which it annexed in 2014.
Last weekend’s bold Ukrainian strike deep inside Russian territory appears to have drawn a sharp and deadly response.
US officials have largely stayed silent, though former President Donald Trump weighed in on Friday, saying Ukraine had “given Putin a reason to go in and bomb the hell out of them”.
His comment sparked criticism in Washington, where both Republican and Democratic lawmakers have largely backed continued support for Ukraine.
As Kharkiv’s residents sift through rubble and mourn the dead, the war grinds on with no clear path to peace, and each side accusing the other of escalation.
