KYIV: Five people were killed on Wednesday as Russia struck Ukraine’s eastern Kharkiv and Donetsk regions, local officials said.

In the northeastern Kharkiv region bordering Russia, a guided bomb attack killed two civilians, a 38-year-old woman and her father inside a car, the region’s governor said. The region — large parts of which were occupied by Russian forces for months after they invaded in February 2022 — is under near-constant bombardment from Russian artillery.

On Wednesday morning, “two guided aerial bombs hit the centre of the town of Zolochiv,” around 15 kilometres from the Russian border, Kharkiv regional governor Oleg Synegubov said on national television. Another 13 people, including an 11-year-old child, were wounded, he said.

Further east in the Kharkiv region close to the city of Kupiansk, Russian shelling killed a 67-year-old woman in the village of Lelyukivka, Synegubov added.

Published in Dawn, May 2nd, 2024