Child among dead as Russian glide bomb strikes playground in Kharkiv

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

At least five people, including a teenage girl, have been killed in what Kyiv has said is a Russian glide bomb attack on an apartment block in northeast Ukraine.

The daytime attack hit the 12-floor building and the playground in front of it, with multiple cars catching fire. At least 47 people were wounded, according to the governor of the Kharkiv region, Oleh Syniehubov.

"Occupiers killed a child right on the playground," local mayor Ihor Terekhov said on the Telegram messenger app. Footage showed whole floors of the building on fire with residents heard screaming.

Scenes from the site of the attack were shared widely across Ukrainian social media channels as many expressed fury at the Western allies who have refused to allow Kyiv to use long-range missiles to strike deeper into Russia and hit the source of such bombs.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky reposted a video of the aftermath of the strike, using the incident to reiterate his calls for Kyiv’s Western allies to lift the current ban on deeper strikes.

“The Russian strike on Kharkiv directly on people, on ordinary homes,” he wrote. “This strike was carried out using a Russian guided aerial bomb – a strike that could have been prevented if our Defence Forces had the capability to destroy Russian military aircraft at their bases.

“We need strong decisions from our partners to stop this terror.”

Earlier, Russia sent volleys of missiles and drones across Ukraine, as part of a week of vicious strikes involving several hundreds of projectiles.

Overnight into Friday morning Russian attacks damaged a factory in Ukraine’s northeastern city of Sumy, injuring at least eight people, according to local authorities. They later added that one injured person died subsequently in hospital, regional prosecutors said on Telegram, and the body of another victim was retrieved from the rubble.

The Ukrainian air force said it shot down 12 out of 18 Russia-launched drones overnight over five Ukrainian regions. Four more drones fell over the Ukrainian territory. Russia also used an Iskander-M missile during the attack, the air force added.

In total, Russia has fired at least 425 drones and missiles in the last five days, according to the Ukrainian air force.

It comes as a funeral has been held for a “heroic” Ukrainian pilot after his US-made F-16 fighter jet crashed during the first Russian aerial attack of the week on Monday, the largest assault of the war. Russia fired 236 missiles and drones in what was estimated to cost Moscow $1.3 billion (£983m).

It is the first F-16 to be destroyed since their arrival last month. The Ukrainian air force said Lieutenant Colonel Oleksiy Mes was killed on 26 August “during a massive Russian missile and airstrike”. He shot down three cruise missiles and one drone before crashing, they added.

The loss of the jet and one of the air force’s only pilots trained to fly the high tech F-16s is a major setback for Ukraine, who spent years lobbying its Western partners to send the planes.

Hundreds of military personnel and family turned out in the city of Shepetivka, western Ukraine, on Thursday to bury Lt Col Mes. Images showed his wife holding a child as she wept by his coffin; another shows half a dozen soldiers lowering the pilot into his grave surrounded by Ukrainian flags.

He was buried on the Day of Remembrance for Fallen Heroes, which marked 10 years since hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers were killed evacuating through an agreed “green corridor” in the eastern city of Ilovaisk. It has since been used as a day to honour all those killed in the decade-long Russian invasion, which was contained to the east and the Crimean peninsula for the first eight years.

“Oleksiy Mes, a pilot of the Ukrainian Air Force, heroically fought his last battle in the skies,” the air force wrote. “On 26 August, during a massive Russian missile and airstrike, Oleksiy shot down three cruise missiles and one strike drone.

“He saved countless Ukrainians from deadly Russian missiles, tragically at the cost of his own life. We will never forget you.”

An investigation into how the plane crashed has been opened as the details of the incident remain unclear. Air force commander Mykola Oleshchuk said on Telegram that the United States, where the F-16 is manufactured, is assisting the investigation.

Ukraine’s general staff reported that the “plane suffered disasters”, while one official briefed on the incident suggested the plane may not have been downed by Russian fire.

Mes, who was fluent in English, featured heavily in Ukraine’s lobbying campaign to get the green light from Kyiv’s western partners to donate the fighter jets. He played a key role in a visit to the US in 2022 calling for the F-16s. And he was subsequently picked to be part of the first group of Ukrainian pilots to train in F-16s, spending several months in Denmark.

In a video published by the Danish defence ministry earlier this month, after the first F-16s had arrived in Ukraine, Mes could be seen extolling the speed and reactions of the US-made jet compared with previous Soviet-era models they had been using.

“It feels like the jet wants you to fly it more aggressively than you should,” he said. “The moment you think of something, it turns.”

Dozens more Ukrainian pilots are currently training in Arizona and Romania, while additional jets are also set to arrive.

At least 80 F-16s have been promised to Ukraine over the next few years but only between six and 10 have already been delivered, according to an official.