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Kyiv: Russia launched a fresh drone assault on Ukraine after promising that strikes on the Russian border city of Belgorod that killed 24 people Saturday “would not go unpunished”.
The Ukrainian Air Force said Sunday that it had shot down 21 of 49 drones launched by Russian forces overnight.
The retaliatory Russian attack wounded 28 people in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, regional Governor Oleh Syniehubov said. A hotel, kindergarten, apartment buildings, shops and administrative buildings sustained damage, according to the regional prosecutor’s office.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said it had targeted “decision-making centres and military facilities” in Kharkiv. The ministry said the hit on the Kharkiv Palace Hotel had “destroyed representatives of the Main Intelligence Directorate and Ukrainian Armed Forces” involved in the “terrorist attack” in Belgorod.
Ukrainian Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said a British journalist was among the wounded, while public German broadcaster ZDF said Sunday that one of its television crews had been in the hotel.
A Ukrainian translator was hit by debris and seriously wounded, and one of the team’s security guards also was injured, ZDF said in a statement.
“This is another attack by Russia on the free press,” ZDF Editor-in-Chief Bettina Schausten said.
In the Kyiv region that surrounds Ukraine’s capital, a Russian drone attack caused a fire at a critical infrastructure facility, local officials said. They did not identify the nature of the facility.
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