Cnn
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Russia has bombed the second largest city in Ukraine with massive strikes in the early hours of Saturday, said its mayor, killing at least three people, one night after Moscow led one of the greatest air assaults in the war against Ukraine.
Russia has led In -depth attacks against Ukraine in recent daysin what is considered reprisals for a Daring drone operation by Kyiv who weakened more than a third of the Moscow strategic cruise missile transporters.
The city of northeast Kharkiv – which is around 30 kilometers (19 miles) from the Russian border – was shaken by “at least 40 explosions” on Saturday, according to a telegram from Mayor Igor Terekhov.
“Kharkiv is currently experiencing the most powerful attack since the start of the large -scale war,” said Terekhov. “The enemy strikes simultaneously with missiles (drones) and guided air bombs. It is a pure and simple terror against peaceful Kharkiv. ”
The video published by the emergency services showed a large burning fire in a several storey building in the Osnovyanskyi district in the southwest of the city, where Terekhov said that two people had died. One person was also killed in a strike that hit a house in the Kievskyi district in the north, he said.
In response to the assault, the Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said that Russia “continued its terror against civilians”, while asking that more pressures be exerted in Moscow “to end the murder and destruction of Russia”.
More than 50 drones, four guided air bombs and a missile were used in the attack which also damaged a building and administrative music school in the city, according to the Kharkiv region’s prosecutor’s office.
Among the injured are a 14 -year -old girl and a month old and a half, who suffers from “acute stress”, added the office.
Ruslana Sheveleva, a resident of Kharkiv whose neighbors’ house was struck in the attack, described the chaotic scenes as people rushed to escape the building. “The house was touched, where this young man was lying,” she told Susilne, the Ukrainian public broadcaster.
“I don’t think he even understands what was going on. He died instantly. They dug his mother under the rubble. Her father, if I understand correctly, managed to get out almost alone, ”she added.
Iryna Ivanenko, another resident, said that her 26 -year -old daughter – who had been saved later by firefighters – begged her aid, trapped in her room under a high slab. “I tried to lift the slab, but it was impossible,” Ivanenko told Suspline.
Russian attacks in the country have killed at least seven people and injured more than 40 other people since Friday morning, according to a CNN count of local authorities figures.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s Air Force said on Saturday that it had shot down a Russian SU35 fighter plane as part of an “successful Air Force operation in the direction of Kursk”.
Russia did not immediately comment on the complaint, but a Russian military blogger described the plane as lost and said that the pilot had been rescued.
One day earlier, in an apparent reprisals for Ukraine’s drone swarm, Russia has launched a dam of ballistic drones and missiles in large bands of Ukraine, killing at least six people and injuring dozens of others.
“They gave Putin a reason to enter and bomb them last night,” US President Donald Trump said on Friday on the Air Force One.
Trump had previously warned Russian reprisals was imminent, after talking Wednesday with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.
It was not immediately clear if Putin intended to degenerate more reprisals from Moscow.
Trump is impatient to put an end to the three-year war, but he was reluctant to impose new sanctions on Russia while the United States pushed nations at war to conclude a cease-fire contract.
On Friday, he said that he would use other sanctions against Russia “if necessary”.
“If I think Russia will not materialize a contract or will not stop the bloodshed … I will use it if necessary,” he told journalists.
Responsible for Russia and Ukraine met in Istanbul on Monday For a second cycle of peace talks, but the meeting lasted just over an hour and the only real result was an agreement to work on another exchange of prisoners.