Kharkiv: Guided Bomb Hits Building, 22 Injured
A Russian guided bomb struck a residential building in Kharkiv overnight Monday, injuring 22 people, including children, as new casualties were reported across Ukraine.
The war in Ukraine entered another night of mass strikes, just as the West, including Serbia as an EU candidate country, continues to grapple with how long Moscow intends to keep up its military campaign despite calls for a ceasefire. Russia struck Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, twice overnight into Monday, September 28, using guided aerial bombs, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said on his Telegram channel.
One bomb hit a residential building directly in the Saltivka district, damaging the second and third floors, while residential buildings in the Kyivskyi district were also damaged. Twenty two people were injured. Kyiv Post reported that eight children were among them: two boys, aged 12 and 8, were hospitalized, while six children between the ages of 3 and 15 were treated at the scene. Al Jazeera, citing the mayor, put the number of injured children at six.
Strikes hit other parts of the country over the weekend. In Sumy, three people were killed, including a 16 year old girl, and a children’s center was damaged, Interior Minister Ivan Vyhivskyi said. In the Odesa region, one person was killed in what local authorities called a massive strike that damaged a residential building, a shop, a hotel, a medical facility and a grain warehouse.
In Kyiv, the city administration reported 16 damaged sites, including 12 homes, a warehouse and a production facility. Kyiv Post, citing the State Emergency Service, said two people were killed and three injured in the Kyiv region, while four people were injured in the city itself, in the Podilskyi and Holosiivskyi districts. “The enemy continues to mercilessly attack the Kyiv region with strike drones,” the city administration said in a statement.
The overall casualty count across Ukraine varies by source. Al Jazeera reported eight people killed nationwide on Sunday, while the Kyiv Independent, covering September 26 and 27, recorded at least 14 dead and 57 injured, with a particularly severe strike on the Odesa region.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia fired more than 2,200 attack drones and 38 missiles of several types at Ukraine over the past week. Sources differ on the number of guided bombs: Al Jazeera puts the figure at 1,630, the Kyiv Independent at around 1,650.
“If Russia were truly preparing for any real steps toward de-escalation, as it claims, particularly to American negotiators, this wave of Shahed terror would not be happening.”
Zelensky said, referring to the Iranian designed drones Moscow uses against Ukraine.
Overnight on September 27, Russia launched 170 Shahed type drones, 76 of them jet powered, the Ukrainian air force said. Ukrainian air defense shot down or neutralized 147 of them that night.
Ukrainian drones reportedly hit the Pavlovska oil depot in Russia’s Krasnodar region and a factory producing missile components in the city of Azov on Monday, according to local reports. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Saturday at the UN General Assembly in New York that Moscow would continue its military campaign to the end.
On the front line, Ukrainian forces are continuing Operation Vivaldi in the Lyman direction. Zelensky said Ukrainian units killed or wounded 10,660 Russian soldiers over the past week, though he noted that Russia does not officially publish its own losses and the figure cannot be independently verified. “The occupiers continue to be eliminated, and the goals we set are being achieved,” Zelensky wrote on X, citing a report from commander in chief Mykhailo Drapatyi.
This is the latest in a series of strikes since a drone hit a high rise building in Kyiv’s Pechersk district days earlier, killing a 14 year old boy, as Srpske Novine reported at the time. With talks led by the United States yet to produce a breakthrough in ending the war that has raged since February 2022, the United Nations is warning of a growing civilian toll, and the question of sanctions and pressure on Moscow remains open, including for countries like Serbia, which has not yet joined the European Union’s restrictive measures against Russia.
