Russia pounds Kharkiv in deadly barrage, straining Ukraine’s defenses
KYIV,Ukraine — Russian rockets slammed into residential buildings in Kharkiv before dawn on Saturday, Ukrainian officials said, killing at least six people and injuring at least 11 more in the latest assault on Ukraine’s second-largest city.
“Russian terror against Kharkiv continues,” President Volodymyr Zelensky, of Ukraine, said in a statement. “It’s crucial to strengthen the air defense for the Kharkiv region. And our partners can help us with this.”
Ukraine’s air defenses have come increasingly under strain since American military support stopped flowing into the country more than six months ago, and future assistance remains uncertain amid Republican resistance in Congress to a $60 billion aid package.
Speaker Mike Johnson, RLa., has hinted that he would soon bring the issue of military aid for Ukraine to a vote in the House, but has also said that he might tie the issue to unrelated matters like domestic energy policies that could complicate its passage.
At the same time, Russia has replenished and expanded its stockpile of missiles, guided bombs and attack drones and is stepping up its bombardments across the country.
Mr. Zelenskyy said this past week that “in March alone, Russian terrorists used over 400 missiles of various types, 600 Shahed drones and over 3,000 guided aerial bombs against
Ukraine.”
Kharkiv, second in population only to Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and only about 25 miles from the Russian border, has been particularly hard hit. Russianforces tried and failed to encircle and capture the city in the first months of the war, which began in February2022, and they were driven out of most of the Kharkiv region during Kyiv’s counteroffensivethat fall.
As Russia has stepped up its aerial bombardments of Kharkiv, it has for the first time deployed powerful guided bombs to hit the city.
The use of the modified bombs represents a new and potentially deadly development against which Ukraine has little defense, Ukrainian officials and military analysts said.
There are a number of variations of the weapons, known as glide bombs, but essentially they are powerful gravity bombs modified with a set of wings and guidance systems to allow them to be
dropped by fighter-bombers out of the range of Ukrainian air-defensesystems.
More than 20,000 buildings have been destroyed in Kharkiv since Russia launched its full-scale invasion. Ukrainian government officials estimate that it will cost more than $10 billion to rebuild everything that has alreadybeen destroyed.
“Practically all critical energy infrastructure in Kharkiv is destroyed, and private infrastructure is also shattered,” Ihor Terekhov, the city’s mayor, said this pastweek.
“More than 150,000 residents of Kharkiv are left homeless,”he added.
In the most recent overnight attack, Russia hit residential neighborhoods with a barrage of S-300 missiles, which were fired from Russian territory and can reach Kharkiv in under a minute, Ukrainian officials said.
Nine residential buildings, a kindergarten, a cafe and a gas station were among the buildingsdamaged.