(Reuters) -Russia launched a series of attacks on the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv and the surrounding region on Wednesday, killing three people, wounding at least six and damaging the office of a Swiss mine-clearing NGO, local officials said.
Ukraine’s second-largest city and the surrounding region, which borders Russia, have been battered by drone, missile and guided-bomb attacks since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Regional police said a strike on the town of Lozova, south of Kharkiv, killed three people and injured six, with rescue operations proceeding into the evening.
The region’s governor, Oleh Syniehubov, said an overnight strike destroyed the facade of the Fondation suisse de déminage’s office and the ceilings of several of its floors.
Six cars used by the group’s medics were damaged, he said, noting the importance of demining initiatives in his region, one of the most densely strewn with landmines and other potentially harmful war detritus.
Mayor Ihor Terekhov said there had been five separate strikes on the city since Russia’s overnight attack.
The latest one hit an industrial area and injured six people, he said. Police said unspecified infrastructure was destroyed in this attack, including damage to vehicles.
Syniehubov reported new strikes late in the evening and local media reported explosions outside the city after midnight, but there were no reports on casualties or damage.
Russia denies deliberately targeting civilians but thousands have been killed and injured in its 29-month-old invasion of Ukraine.
(Reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne, Yuliia Dysa in Gdansk; Editing by Bernadette Baum, Ron Popeski and Chris Reese)
