KYIV, Ukraine — A Russian drone smashed into a home in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region overnight, killing a father and his three small children and seriously wounding their mother who is 35 weeks pregnant, officials said Wednesday.
The strike completely destroyed the house and set it on fire, with the family trapped under the rubble, according to the Kharkiv regional prosecutor’s office.
The 34-year-old father and his three children — twin boys aged 2 and their 1-year-old sister — were killed, while rescue workers pulled the mother alive from the rubble, prosecutors said.
She sustained blast injuries, a traumatic brain injury, burns and hearing loss, they said.
The drone that struck the Kharkiv town of Bohodukhiv was identified as a Geran-2, a Russian-made version of an Iranian Shahed drone.
Ukraine’s Air Force says Russia launched 129 long-range drones at Ukraine last night, as the war drags almost four years after Russia’s invasion of its neighbor and despite U.S.-led peace efforts.
Meanwhile, a Ukrainian drone attack caused a fire at an industrial plant in the city of Volgograd, authorities said.
Volgograd region’s Gov. Andrei Bocharov said that drone fragments also damaged an apartment building.
Eight Russian airports briefly suspended flights overnight because of drone attacks, officials said.
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