(Reuters) -Swarms of Russian drones attacked the Ukrainian cities of Kharkiv and Dnipro late on Tuesday, killing at least one person and injuring at least 38, officials said.
The mass attack on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city in the northeast and a frequent target of drones and missiles, injured 38 people, regional governor Oleh Syniehubov said, noting that two children were among the injured.
Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov put the number of injured at 39.
“There have been 16 strikes on Kharkiv,” Terekhov wrote on the Telegram messaging app. “A high-rise apartment block was hit as were private homes, a medical facility and civil infrastructure.”
Terekhov said several areas of the city centre had been targeted – the apartment building was hit in the Slobidskyi district along with a private house in Saltivskyi district.
Public broadcaster Suspilne posted pictures of firefighters tackling flames.
Suspilne said one drone struck the eighth floor of an apartment building. It said two medical facilities had been hit.
In Dnipro, in Ukraine’s southeast, drones triggered fires and killed one person, Serhiy Lysak, governor of Dnipropetrovsk region, said on Telegram.
“There are a number of fires in the city,” Lysak wrote. “Private homes have been damaged.”
Both cities have been regular Russian targets in the more than three-year-old war.
Kharkiv remained uncaptured in the early weeks of the conflict, when Russian forces unsuccessfully tried to advance on Ukraine’s capital Kyiv. It has been a frequent target of air attacks, while Russian forces concentrated their ground advances on the Donbas region in the east of the country.
A mass Russian drone attack in Dnipro last month killed four people and sparked a large fire in a hotel and restaurant complex and other buildings.
(Reporting by Ron Popeski and Oleksandr Kozhukhar; Editing by Sandra Maler and Nia Williams)
