Russia pummeled Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, overnight on Saturday, using a swarm of drones, bombs and missiles that killed at least three people, according to the local authorities. It was the latest in an escalating series of Russian air assaults on urban centers that have further dampened hopes for a cease-fire.
Located just 20 miles from the Russian border, Kharkiv is a frequent target of Russian air assaults. What set the latest attack apart was the sheer volume of weapons launched in a short span of time.
The local authorities said that within 90 minutes, Russia struck the city with nearly 50 drones, two missiles and four glide bombs, powerful guided weapons that carry hundreds of pounds of explosives. Kharkiv’s mayor, Ihor Terekhov, said that 40 explosions were heard in the city. He described the overnight assault as “the most powerful attack” on the city since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began more than three years ago.
Photos released by Ukraine’s emergency services showed the upper floors of a residential block ablaze, with white smoke pouring into the early morning sky. In other images, rescuers sifted through the charred wreckage of a gutted apartment. Parts of the photos were blurred, likely to hide the remains of two people killed in the strike, according to the rescuers.
A third person died elsewhere in Kharkiv, and about 20 others were injured in the assault. The local prosecutor’s office said on Saturday afternoon that six people were most likely still trapped under the rubble of an industrial facility in Kharkiv that was struck during the attack.
President Trump this week compared the dual air assaults between Russia and Ukraine to “two young children fighting like crazy.”
“They hate each other, and they’re fighting in a park, and you try and pull them apart,” Mr. Trump said on Thursday in an Oval Office news conference. “They don’t want to be pulled. Sometimes you’re better off letting them fight for a while and then pulling them apart.”
In an interview with ABC News released on Friday, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine responded to the comment. “We are not kids with Putin at the playground in the park,” he said, referring to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. “He is a murderer who came to this park to kill the kids.”
In April, a Russian missile struck a playground in Mr. Zelensky’s hometown, Kryvyi Rih, killing 19 civilians, including nine children. It was the deadliest strike against children since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion, according to the United Nations.
Russia’s intensified attacks have come alongside a new offensive in the east and in the northeastern Sumy region. The push into Sumy follows Russian forces driving Ukrainian troops back from parts of Russia’s Kursk region, just across the border from Sumy.
To prevent future incursions into Kursk, Mr. Putin announced last month that Russian forces would launch an offensive in Sumy to create a buffer zone along the border. In the past three weeks, Russian troops have seized about 10 villages in the area, gaining control of roughly 75 square miles of territory.
“It’s clear this is already an offensive on Sumy region — a full-scale offensive,” said Andrii, a 44-year-old company intelligence commander fighting there who declined to be identified with his full name for security reasons and due to military protocol.
He said he saw the offensive not only as an effort to establish the buffer zone that Mr. Putin called for, but also as a strategy to pin down Ukrainian forces and prevent their redeployment to other frontline hot spots in the east.
Andrii said that Russian troops were currently pushing toward the village of Khotin, six miles from the border. If they seize it, he warned, the situation could turn critical.
Khotin sits on high ground and lies less than 12 miles from the city of Sumy, the regional administrative center, close enough for Russian forces to strike it with drones and artillery. Sumy is home to about 250,000 people.
More than 200 villages and settlements have been evacuated from the Sumy region over the past year because of the fighting in the area.
Liubov Sholudko contributed reporting.