A Russian drone bombing of the northern Ukrainian city of Pryluky in the early hours of Thursday killed at least five individuals, including a one-year-old boy, his mother, and grandmother, Ukrainian authorities reported.
The attack happened during about 5:30 a.m. local time, when six drones attacked a residential area. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that the dead child was the grandson of a rescue worker. “One of the rescuers came to respond to the consequences exactly at his own residence,” Zelenskyy posted on Telegram. “It turned out a Shahed drone struck his house.”
Official sources announced six other individuals were hurt in the attack and are undergoing treatment at a hospital.
The crippling attack occurred hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke over the phone to former U.S. President Donald Trump. Trump alleged Putin threatened that Russia would “retaliate strongly” over Ukraine’s recent drone attacks on Russian airbases.
Pryluky, a city approximately 100 kilometers to the east of Kyiv, with around 50,000 inhabitants prior to the conflict, is well away from the front lines and does not have any reported military installations.
In his declaration, Zelenskyy pointed out that 103 drones and one ballistic missile hit different regions of Ukraine during the night, including Donetsk, Kharkiv, Odesa, Sumy, Chernihiv, Dnipro, and Kherson. “It is another mass strike,” he mentioned. “It is another reason to impose the strongest possible sanctions and exert pressure collectively.”
Zelenskyy, who recently signed on to a U.S.-supported ceasefire proposal and indicated he was willing to sit down with Putin in an effort to revive stalled talks, has been calling on the international community to ramp up sanctions against Russia. The Kremlin, however, has remained unresponsive to overtures or compromise, with Putin said to be unwilling to sit down with Zelenskyy.
Persistent U.S. diplomatic efforts have only so far produced limited results in bringing the three-year war to a close, with the war raged on as a drawn-out war of attrition.
In the meantime, Germany’s new leader, Friedrich Merz, was set to meet Trump in Washington on Thursday to reaffirm U.S. backing for Ukraine’s military and diplomatic efforts.
As part of Ukraine’s effort to garner more international support, presidential aide Andriy Yermak traveled to Washington on Wednesday and had high-level American officials meet with him. In a statement posted on Ukraine’s presidential site, Yermak demanded stepped-up pressure on Russia, blaming Moscow for delaying peace negotiations and obstructing ceasefires. He also made a plea for Ukraine’s urgent need for more sophisticated air defense systems.
‘Only hours after the Pryluky attack, there was another drone strike on the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, in which 17 individuals including children, a pregnant woman, and a 93-year-old woman were injured’, regional governor Oleh Syniehubov reported Telegram.
At approximately 1:05 a.m., Shahed drones hit two apartment complexes in Kharkiv’s Slobidskyi district, resulting in fires and destroying private cars. “By carrying out attacks while citizens sleep in their apartments, the enemy again confirms its tactic of treacherous terror,” Syniehubov wrote.
Moreover, four large glide bombs were released by Russian planes on Kherson in the south, injuring at least three individuals, local authorities confirmed.
