Russian drone attack kills three young Ukrainian children and their father

Three small children and their father died in a Russian drone attack in eastern Ukraine, which also left their pregnant mother wounded, local emergency services reported. The family had arrived just the day before in the town of Bohodukhiv, about 60 kilometers west of Kharkiv, after fleeing the bombings, said Oleg Synegubov, governor of the Kharkiv region. “They had just evacuated Zolochiv, trying to escape the constant bombings and find a safer place to live. This was their first night in the new place,” he wrote on Telegram. The authorities of Zolochiv reported later this Wednesday that new attacks had been registered in the village, including a drone attack that left two teenagers injured.

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Synegubov identified the victims as the two-year-old twins Ivan and Vladislav, their one-year-old sister Miroslava, and their father, Gryhoriy, 34 years old. This Wednesday morning, authorities had stated that Miroslava was the oldest of the three siblings, a confusion that could be due to the fact that the family was new to the area. Volodymyr Belyi, the town’s mayor, called the attack a “crime that surpasses human understanding.” “We have lost the most precious thing we had: our future,” he said in a statement. Police said the mother, who is 35 weeks pregnant, suffered head injuries and burns. She has already been discharged from the hospital, said Synegubov, who also clarified the identity of another survivor, a 73-year-old neighbor whom the police mistakenly identified as the children’s grandmother. The house where the family was staying was completely destroyed by the attack and the subsequent fire. Photos of the place show burnt debris, with charred toys visible in what was once the interior of the house. The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, stated that the attack demonstrated that Russia was not serious about peace. “Each of these Russian attacks undermines confidence in everything that is being done diplomatically to end this war,” he noted in a Telegram statement. Zelensky said that Russia launched 129 attack drones against Ukraine overnight, attacking the regions of Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhia, and Poltava.

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The attacks continued throughout the day. Authorities in the Kharkiv region reported that a drone hit a medical vehicle carrying five healthcare workers and civilian passengers, causing the death of a woman. Russia also launched two ballistic missiles towards Lviv this Wednesday afternoon, reported the mayor of the western Ukrainian city, Andriy Sadoviy. He indicated that Ukraine managed to “neutralize” them, which he called a “monumental” task.