A Russian drone strike on a house in northeastern Ukraine’s Kharkiv region killed a father and his three children, officials said Wednesday, while their pregnant mother and grandmother were hospitalized.
The victims included two boys, aged 1, a 2-year-old girl and their father, who were killed late Tuesday night when a drone hit the family’s home in the city of Bogodukhiv, around 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the Russian border.
The children’s mother, who is eight months pregnant, survived but suffered “a traumatic brain injury, acoustic barotrauma, and thermal burns,” local prosecutors said. Their grandmother was also wounded and hospitalized, Bogodukhiv Mayor Volodymyr Biely said.
Prosecutors said the family was trapped inside the house after it was struck. A video released by emergency services showed flames and smoke rising from the collapsed structure.
“As a result of the strike, the house was completely destroyed and caught fire, and the family was trapped under the rubble,” prosecutors said in a statement.
Police said the family had moved to Bogodukhiv only days ago after having fled a town closer to the front line.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the strike demonstrated that Russia is not serious about ending the war.
“Each such Russian strike undermines trust in everything being done diplomatically to end this war and, time and again, proves that only strong pressure on Russia and clear security guarantees for Ukraine are the real key to stopping the killings,” he said on social media.
Zelensky also said Russia had hit a hospital in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia in a separate drone attack.
