ISTANBUL

Shelling by Russian forces injured 28 civilians in eastern Ukraine on Sunday, a local official said, a day after a missile strike on a nearby region in Russia claimed 24 lives.

“As a result of shelling, 28 civilians were injured, 12 of them are in hospital. Among the patients are two children aged 14 and 16 and a foreign citizen. The victims are in medium and light condition,” Kharkiv Governor Oleh Synyehubov said on Telegram.

Synyehubov said that Russia, in an initial strike conducted late Saturday, fired at least six rockets at the city of Kharkiv, with local law enforcement removing the wreckage of the Iskander rockets.

He further said residential buildings, hotels, and the grounds of healthcare facilities were damaged, including a clinical hospital, dental polyclinic, and two city hospitals.

In a second strike, Synyehubov said Russia conducted another strike on Kharkiv city, this time with drones, though this attack resulted in no casualties.

He said the bodies of a woman and two men were removed from a house hit by Russian shells in the settlement of Borova.

“More than 15 settlements of the Kharkiv region were hit by enemy artillery and mortar attacks, particularly Bochkove, Chuhuiv District; Krasne Pershe, Dvorichna, Synkivka, Petropavlivka, Ivanivka, Berestove of the Kupiansk District,” he added.

Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said in a post on Telegram that the drone attack targeted “not military facilities, but cafes, residential buildings and offices,” expressing that Russia wants to “intimidate” the city on the eve of 2024.

In a later statement, the Russian Defense Ministry took responsibility for the strikes, saying it struck “decision-making centers and military facilities” in Kharkiv and the city's Palace Hotel, where it claimed it killed military officials "directly involved in the planning and execution of the terrorist attack in Belgorod."

At least 24 people were killed due to a Ukrainian attack on the Russian city of Belgorod, the administrative center of Belgorod region located approximately 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of the border with Ukraine.

Meanwhile, at least 40 people were killed in various regions of Ukraine, including 23 in the capital Kyiv, after a massive air attack by Russian forces on Friday, which President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described as the "heaviest attack" so far by Moscow.