Russian attacks on Ukrainian city of Kharkiv kill 4

The first wave on Ukraine's second-largest city was a large Russian drone-and-missile attack in the early hours.

Russian attacks targeting the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv killed at least four people and wounded more than two dozen others on Saturday, officials said, as hopes for peace dimmed further.

The first wave on Ukraine’s second-largest city was a large Russian drone-and-missile attack in the early hours. It killed at least three people and wounded 21 others, according to local officials. In the afternoon, Russia dropped aerial bombs on the city centre, killing at least one person and wounding five more, Kharkiv’s mayor said.

The warring sides also accused each other of trying to sabotage a planned prisoner exchange, nearly a week after Kyiv embarrassed the Kremlin with a surprising drone attack on military airfields deep inside Russia.

Saturday’s barrage — the latest in near daily widescale attacks on Ukraine — included aerial glide bombs that have become part of a fierce Russian onslaught in the all-out war, which began on Feb. 24, 2022.

As firefighters and emergency workers bustled around attack sites in Kharkiv, residents described the strikes that damaged their homes and nearly took their lives on Saturday morning.

Alina Belous said that she had tried to extinguish flames with buckets of water to rescue a young girl trapped inside a burning building who had called out for help.

“We were trying to put it out ourselves with our buckets, together with our neighbours. Then the rescuers arrived and started helping us put out the fire, but there was smoke and they worried that we couldn’t stay there. When the ceiling started falling off, they took us out,” she said.

Local resident Vadym Ihnachenko said that he thought at first that it was a neighbouring building going up in flames.