At least three killed in Russia’s ‘most powerful’ strike on Ukraine’s second city – Russia-Ukraine war live

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Here are some of the images coming out of Kharkiv, Ukraine, today via the newswires:

Rescuers carry an injured person out of the ruins of a civilian plant after Russian attacks on Kharkiv early on Saturday. Photograph: Sergey Bobok/AFP/Getty Images

Firefighters work at the site of a building hit by a Russian drone strike in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on Saturday. Photograph: Sofiia Gatilova/Reuters

Fire is seen among the smoke clouds billowing from a Russian attack on Kharkiv, Ukraine on Satuday. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

Kharkiv’s mayor said the attack damaged 18 apartment buildings and 13 private homes. Photograph: Andrii Marienko/AP

The large Russian drone-and-missile attack that targeted Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine on Saturday, has killed at least three people and injured 21, local Ukrainian officials said, according to the Associated Press (AP).

Kharkiv’s mayor Ihor Terekhov said the attack also damaged 18 apartment buildings and 13 private homes. Citing preliminary data, he said Russia used 48 Shahed drones, two missiles and four aerial glide bombs in the attack.

Mayor: Kharkiv 'currently experiencing most powerful attack since start of the war'

More now on the overnight attacks on Kharkiv, which we’ve learned also reportedly injured a one-and-a-half -month-old baby.

The mayor of the city, which is Ukraine’s second largest, said the attack was Russia’s biggest .

“Kharkiv is currently experiencing the most powerful attack since the start of the full-scale war,” Ihor Terekhov said on the Telegram messenger early on Saturday.

Dozens of explosions were heard in the city through the night and Russian troops were striking simultaneously with missiles, drones and guided aerial bombs, he said.

Multi-storey and private residential buildings, educational and infrastructure facilities were attacked, he added.

Opening summary

Welcome to our coverage of the ongoing war in Ukraine, following Russia’s invasion in February 2022.

Here’s what we’re covering following the latest developments.

• Russian strikes on the Ukrainian cities of Kherson and Kharkiv early on Saturday killed at least five people, officials said. A strike on a high-rise building in Kherson killed a couple, said Oleksandr Prokudin, the regional governor. Russia hit Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, with missiles, Shahed drones and guided bombs before dawn on Saturday, killing three people in what the mayor, Igor Terekhov, described as the “most powerful attack” there since the start of the war. Seventeen people were wounded. One woman was pulled alive from the rubble of a high-rise building.

• Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, said Russia had “‘responded’ to its destroyed aircraft … by attacking civilians in Ukraine … Multi-storey buildings hit. Energy infrastructure damaged.” Ukrainian spies last weekend destroyed Russian strategic bomber aircraft on the ground using quadcopter drones hidden on top of trucks in Operation Spiderweb.

• Russia’s missile and drone barrage against Kyiv on Friday killed at least seven people, Ukrainian officials said. Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, said three emergency workers who went to a bomb site were “killed in a repeat Russian strike”. Two died in an attack on the northern city of Chernihiv and at two more in the north-western city of Lutsk. Eighty people were injured in attacks across Ukraine on Friday.