Russian strikes killed two people and wounded at least 37 overnight in Kharkiv, Ukraine's second largest city, just a day after similar strikes killed three people in Kiev and Odessa. Five children were among the wounded, the mayor, Igor Terekhov, was quoted by AFP and BTA as saying.
Russia and Ukraine carried out the second phase of a large-scale prisoner exchange yesterday - the only concrete progress in the recent peace talks in Istanbul.
But the talks are at a standstill and nighttime attacks targeting Ukrainian civilians continue at high intensity, the agency added.
„Seventeen drone strikes were carried out in two areas“ of Kharkiv, Terekhov specified.
Mostly residential buildings were hit, the local prosecutor's office said, emphasizing that the weapon used was a "Geran-2" drone, the Russian version of the Iranian "Shahed" drone.
Located less than 50 km from the Russian border, Kharkiv has been subjected to increasingly frequent massive night attacks in the past week, as has the rest of the country.
On Saturday night, the city experienced "the most powerful attack since the beginning of the war" in February 2022, with about fifty explosions. Two people were killed and 17 were injured.