10-Year-Old Boy Killed as Russian Missile Hits Apartment Building in Northeastern Ukraine

A Russian missile slammed into a 3-story apartment building in northeastern Ukraine early Friday, killing a 10-year-old boy and injuring 27 others, including an infant, officials said.

The attack came a day after 52 villagers in the Kharkiv region were wiped out in a single missile strike while attending a wake for a member of their community at a local cafe — the deadliest Russian attack on Ukrainian civilians in 2023.

The Friday morning attack on Kharkiv city left a burning ruin of the apartment building. It was part of a night of shelling and drone attacks across the region that damaged homes and warehouses, causing fires, Kharkiv Gov. Oleh Syniehubov wrote on Telegram.

A second missile struck an empty roadway, blowing out the windows of nearby residences. 

“Our resilience, our movement and the daily casualties of the occupiers are what must be the answer to Russian terror,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy commented after the attack, posting a video of the smoking wreckage in Kharkiv.

Emergency crews defused more than 80 explosives overnight, Syniehubov said.

The death toll in the village of Hroza increased from 51 to 52 overnight after an Iskander short-range missile killed 10% of the hamlet’s population on Thursday.

Elsewhere, Russian attacks damaged port facilities in Odesa in the south as Ukraine downed 25 to 33 drones launched against targets across the country overnight, officials said.