Kyiv

At least seven people were killed and 10 others, including three children, were injured after a Russian missile struck a five-storey residential building in Kharkiv, the second-largest city of Ukraine, officials said on Saturday.

Emergency workers continued searching through the rubble for survivors after the attack in the northeastern city.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned the strike and called for a strong international response, saying Russia launched a large overnight assault on Ukraine.

According to Zelenskyy, Russia fired 29 missiles and 480 drones targeting energy facilities in Kyiv and other central regions, with damage reported in at least seven locations across the country.

Preliminary data indicated that Ukrainian air defence systems intercepted 19 missiles and 453 drones. However, nine missiles and 26 strike drones hit 22 locations.

In the Kyiv region, debris from intercepted weapons caused damage in three districts, local authorities said.

Meanwhile, in the southern Odesa region, about 80 firefighters battled large fires at infrastructure facilities after a drone attack.

Ukraine’s state railway operator Ukrzaliznytsia said damage to rail infrastructure forced several route changes in the country’s centre-west.

“There must be a response from partners to these savage strikes against life,” Zelenskyy said in a post on X, urging greater support from allies including the European Union.

Russia has deployed thousands of Iranian-designed Shahed drones during the war, which began with its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Moscow has also expanded domestic production of these drones and has carried out large-scale aerial attacks involving hundreds of drones in a single night.

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The escalating conflict in West Asia has recently drawn global attention away from the war in Ukraine and led to the postponement of a new round of US-brokered peace talks between Russia and Ukraine that had been scheduled for this week.