Russian drone strikes killed at least five people and wounded more than 30 in the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, authorities said Friday, the latest barrage amid mounting U.S. pressure for a ceasefire.
Russia and Ukraine have stepped up aerial attacks even as U.S. President Donald Trump pushes them to come to the negotiating table and strike a deal to end more than three years of costly fighting.
The attack on Kharkiv came hours before French and British military chiefs arrived in Kyiv for talks on how a European peacekeeping force could be deployed to Ukraine to help enforce any future ceasefire.
"An 88-year-old man died in hospital ... As of this moment, five people are dead and 32 are wounded," Kharkiv Governor Oleh Syniehubov said on social media, updating the previous toll.
An AFP reporter in the city saw rescue workers climbing through the smoldering rubble of a destroyed residential building, as grey smoke engulfed the air where apartments used to stand.
Ukraine has repeatedly accused Russia of targeting residential areas and civilians throughout its three-year invasion.
Moscow denies purposefully firing on non-military targets, despite thousands of civilians having been killed in Russian air strikes, including on schools, hospitals and apartment blocks.
Six other people were wounded in overnight Russian strikes on the Ukrainian regions of Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kyiv, local authorities reported.
AFP reporters in the capital reported loud explosions of the city's air defense systems operating throughout the night.
Russia's Defense Ministry said Ukraine had also fired more than 100 drones at Russian territory overnight, including on the capital Moscow.
A man in the Bryansk border region was killed in one attack, the regional governor said in a Telegram post on Friday.
Shortly after the overnight attacks, army chiefs from London and Paris arrived in Kyiv for talks on a possible troop deployment.
"There will be at some point a need for military capacity or reassurance, whenever peace is reached. And this is the reason why our army chiefs will be in Kyiv today in order to advance this work," French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on the sidelines of a NATO meeting in Brussels.
Ukraine is pushing for the West, including the United States, to include strong security guarantees as part of any wider peace agreement to ensure Russia does not attack again.
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