Russian drone kills father, 3 children in Ukraine, wounds pregnant mother

Authorities in the town of Bohodukhiv, situated near the Russian border, have declared three days of mourning.

Five people, including three young children, have been killed in the latest overnight Russian attacks on Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said, as United States-led efforts to end the nearly war continue to progress at a slow, bogged-down pace.

The Ukrainian leader said on Wednesday that a Russian drone had struck a private family home in the town of Bohodukhiv in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region late on Tuesday, killing four and seriously injuring their pregnant mother, the sole survivor.

The Kharkiv regional prosecutor’s office said the strike completely destroyed the house, trapping the family beneath the rubble.

It said three children were killed – twin boys aged two and their one-year-old sister – along with their father, 34.

The children’s mother, who is 35 weeks pregnant, was pulled alive from the rubble by rescue teams, suffering from blast injuries, a traumatic brain injury, burns and hearing loss, prosecutors said.