Russia slams Kharkiv with missile barrage, killing printing-plant workers

KYIV - Russian forces pounded the northeastern Ukrainian region of Kharkiv with 15 missiles Thursday, local officials said - the latest brutal attack in a Russian offensive in eastern Ukraine.

At least seven people were killed when a missile hit a printing plant in Kharkiv city, the regional capital, and at least 40 others were injured in the strikes, local officials said.

Russia’s new offensive has displaced thousands and has increased pleas by Kyiv for Western partners to provide more air defense systems.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said the offensive is intended to create a buffer zone on the border to prevent Ukrainian strikes on western Russia. But Putin’s armies are still trying to capture and annex four regions of southeast Ukraine in addition to Crimea, which was seized in 2014.

On Thursday, missiles struck Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, and the neighboring town of Lubotyn at about 10:30 a.m., the Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office posted on Telegram, along with photos of damage from the attacks.

A few hours later, Kharkiv and another nearby town were hit by glide bombs - Soviet-era bombs, sometimes weighing a half-ton, that are fitted with wings and guidance systems, allowing them to fly long distances with some accuracy.

Kharkiv city lies about 20 miles from the Russian border, and the Kharkiv region abuts Russia’s Belgorod region. Since the start of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the area has been shelled and attacked incessantly with missiles and bombs.

The strikes have increased dramatically in recent weeks, however, as Russia launched an offensive to push Ukrainian troops back from the border and draw closer to Kharkiv.

Thursday’s missile attacks were “extremely brutal,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said, posting on social media, adding that they were a direct result of “Ukraine’s lack of sufficient air defense protection” and Ukraine’s inability to strike military positions within Russia, “to destroy terrorist launchers at their exact locations, which are close to our borders.”

“This weakness is not ours, but the world’s, which has not dared to deal with terrorists in the way they deserve for three years,” Zelensky wrote.

The attacks were “mass murder - without any disguises or excuses,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “We kill because we can” was the “motto of the [Russian Federation] at this stage of the war,” he said.

The missile attacks struck “several” facilities of Ukraine’s state railway, Ukrzaliznytsia, the company wrote on Telegram. Ukrzaliznytsia declined to provide further details of where the strikes occurred or the extent of the damage. Six railway workers were injured, the company said.

Russian officials had warned that they planned to increase attacks on logistical targets and other infrastructure.

Last month, Russian missiles hit railway facilities in three Ukrainian regions, including a train station in Balakliya in the Kharkiv region, killing six and injuring dozens.

On Thursday, as Russian forces rained missiles and bombs on Kharkiv, fighting continued in other parts of the region and along the front line in eastern Ukraine.

The commander of Ukraine’s armed forces, Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, wrote on Facebook that Moscow’s troops had become “completely bogged down” and suffered “very heavy losses” in fighting in the town of Vovchansk in the Kharkiv region. That claim could not be independently verified.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba repeated calls for Ukraine’s Western supporters “urgently” to provide six advanced Patriot air defense systems, after Germany promised to provide one more.

“No naming and shaming, but I once again urge countries that have Patriots to speed up decisions and provide these systems to Ukraine,” Kuleba wrote on X. “Every day of delay and debate … brings the possibility of a larger war in Europe closer.”