KHARKIV: Russian and Ukrainian drone strikes killed at least four people on Wednesday, officials said, as the war between the neighbours dragged on for more than four years with no diplomatic breakthrough in sight.

The latest attacks came with a third round of three-party talks derailed by the war in the Middle East, despite pressure from Washington on both sides to agree to an elusive peace deal.

Kyiv said Russian drone strikes had killed two people and wounded seven more in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.

Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, which lies close to the Russian border, was encircled at the beginning of Russia’s invasion four years ago. It has been attacked almost daily since Moscow’s forces were pushed back later in 2022.

The governor of the wider region, Oleg Synegubov, said two people had been killed in the attack on the Shevchenkivsky district. “A civilian enterprise caught fire as a result of the enemy strike,” he said, adding that three women and four men had been hospitalised.

Another Russian drone wounded 20 people in the afternoon, after hitting a civilian minibus in the southeastern city of Kherson, Ukrainian prosecutors said.

In the Russian-occupied part of the southern Zaporizhzhia region, Moscow-installed authorities said two civilians had been killed in their car by a Ukrainian drone strike on the frontline town of Vasylivka. “The danger of repeated strikes remains,” Kremlin-appointed governor Yevgeny Balitsky said.

Published in Dawn, March 12th, 2026