Russian drone strike kills dad and three small children in Ukraine
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
Firefighters working at the site of a Russian drone strike on Feb 11 that killed a father, his two-year-old twin sons and one year-old daughter. The man's pregnant wife survived the attack in Ukraine's Kharkiv region.
PHOTO: REUTERS
- A Russian drone killed four family members, including toddler twin boys and their baby sister, in Ukraine's Kharkiv region on February 10.
- The family's pregnant mother was the sole survivor, suffering injuries after their house was completely destroyed in the strike.
- President Zelensky stated the attack undermines peace diplomacy, stressing the need for continued support against Russia's ongoing aggression.
AI generated
KYIV - A Russian drone crashed into a house in eastern Ukraine, killing toddler twin boys, their baby sister and the children’s father, officials said on Feb 11, in a strike President Volodymyr Zelensky said undermined diplomacy as Washington presses for a peace deal.
Local prosecutors said the drone hit the residential building late on Feb 10 in the town of Bohodukhiv, to the west of Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv.
“As a result of the strike, the house was completely destroyed and engulfed in flames, and the family was trapped under the rubble,” the Kharkiv Region Prosecutor’s Office said on the Telegram messaging app on Feb 11.
Regional governor Oleh Syniehubov described the victims as two boys aged two, a one-year-old girl and a 34-year-old man, and said the boys were twins called Ivan and Vladyslav, and their sister was called Myroslava.
The children’s pregnant mother was the sole survivor, officials said.
Mr Syniehubov said the family had only just moved to the town to escape constant shelling and that it was their first night in the house. The mother was released from hospital after being treated for injuries and minor burns, he added.
Images posted on Telegram by Ukraine’s emergency service showed firefighters battling a blaze in a house, with smoke rising through the wooden beams of the roof.
There was no immediate comment from Russia on the attack. Moscow has denied intentionally targeting civilians during the war although its attacks have killed thousands of them since it invaded at full scale in February 2022. Ukraine has also hit civilian targets in Russia or Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine during the war, though on a far smaller scale.
Strikes ‘undermine trust’
“Each such Russian strike undermines trust in everything being done diplomatically to end this war,” Mr Zelensky wrote on social media, calling for pressure on Russia and security guarantees for Ukraine.
Ukrainian officials have met Russian officials under US mediation in Abu Dhabi in the latest US push to end the war. Mr Zelensky has said US President Donald Trump’s administration wants a solution on how to end the war before the summer.
“The Russian army is not preparing to stop; they are preparing to continue fighting. And the only thing that really works to protect life is our strength, which means support and strengthening of Ukraine must continue,” Mr Zelensky wrote.
He also referred to an overnight drone attack in the neighbouring Sumy region, which he said killed one person and injured six including children, and a drone attack on a hospital in the south-eastern city of Zaporizhzhia.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia had launched 129 drones at Ukraine overnight, of which 112 were shot down or neutralised.
Kharkiv, about 30km from the border with Russia, and the surrounding region have repeatedly been attacked. REUTERS
