Russian drone attacks on Ukraine late on Tuesday have injured at least 20 people in Kharkiv and killed one person in Dnipro, the cities’ representatives have said.
The mayor of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, said on the Telegram messaging app that Russian drones hit a high-rise apartment block, a medical facility and private homes in the city, injuring at least 20 people, some seriously.
“There have been 16 strikes on Kharkiv,” Mayor Ihor Terekhov wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
Mr Terekhov said several areas of the city centre were targeted. The apartment building was hit in the Slobidskyi district along with a private house in Saltivskyi district, he said.
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Kharkiv remained uncaptured in the early weeks of the war, when Russian forces unsuccessfully tried to advance on the capital Kyiv.
More than three years into the conflict, it has been a frequent target of air attacks, while Russian forces concentrated their ground advances on the Donbas region in the east of the country.
Russian forces launched a separate mass drone attack on the southeastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro late on Tuesday, killing one person and triggering fires, the regional governor said.
“There are a number of fires in the city,” Governor Serhiy Lysak said on Telegram.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Tuesday that progress in resolving the more than three-year-old war with Russia depends on Russia taking the first step of agreeing to an unconditional ceasefire.
In his nightly video address, Mr Zelenskiy repeated that Ukraine insists on Russia observing an unconditional ceasefire.
“They must take clear steps toward ending the war and we insist that an unconditional and complete ceasefire must be the first step,” he said.
He said Ukraine is preparing for more talks with the United States aimed at pressuring Moscow to engage in talks.
Mr Zelenskiy on Monday criticised an offer by Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin to observe a three-day ceasefire from May 8th-10th to coincide with commemorations of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany, saying there was no need to wait until then.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said earlier on Tuesday that Ukraine had not responded to Mr Putin’s offers to start direct peace talks, and that it was unclear whether it would join the three-day ceasefire.
-Reuters
