Ukrainian city of Kharkiv hit by Russian guided bomb

Ukrainian authorities said the northeastern city of Kharkiv was hit with a guided bomb on Wednesday, killing at least one person and injuring others in the first such strike on the city since the war began over two years ago.

The attack on a block of apartment buildings in Ukraine’s second-largest city injured at least 19 people, regional Governor Oleh Synehubov said on Telegram. The 30-centimeter diameter missile, with a range of up to 56 miles, has the explosive force of a projectile “between an aerial bomb and a missile,” the governor said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who was on a front-line tour in the near Sumy region along the Russian border, called for additional Patriot missile batteries for air defense.

“There are no rational explanations for why Patriots, which are plentiful around the world, are still not covering the skies of Kharkiv and other cities and communities under attack by Russian terrorists,” Zelenskyy said.

Russian

forces have been increasingly deploying guided bombs dropped from fighter jets to pound Ukrainian positions along the front line, effectively obliterating parts of cities like Avdiivka, which the Kremlin’s military seized this year, to whittle down defenses.

In the early state of the invasion launched in February 2022, Kremlin forces approached Kharkiv, but were unable to seize it. The city, whose prewar population was more than 1 million, still faced water, heating and power shortages at the beginning of the week after a missile barrage on Friday.

After a set of massive missile barrages last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s military pivoted to more targeted strikes with ballistic missiles, which are harder to shoot down.