A 14-year-old girl was among those killed, Interior Minister Igor Klymenko says, and 55 others were wounded
\n Kharkiv
\nA Russian attack on the the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv has killed at least six people, including a 14-year-old girl, and wounded dozens of others, Ukrainian officials have said.
\n\u201cOccupiers killed a child right on the playground,\u201d Kharkiv mayor Ihor Terekhov said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app on Friday.
\nThree other people were killed in a 12-storey apartment block that caught fire as a result of the attack, he said.
\n\u201cUnfortunately, the death toll has risen to six people,\u201d Kharkiv regional Governor Oleg Synegubov said in a post on Telegram hours after the attack.
\nA 14-year-old girl was among those killed, Interior Minister Igor Klymenko said.
\nAt least 55 people were wounded, he said.
\nA video from the site shared by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy\u2019s chief of staff Andriy Yermak, showed huge flames and heavy black smoke rising from the upper floors of a residential building.
\n\u201cRussians hit civilians again,\u201d Yermak said on Telegram.
\nKharkiv, Ukraine\u2019s second-largest city, and the surrounding region have long been targeted by Russian attacks, in particular, by highly destructive guided bombs.
\nMoscow\u2019s forces attempted to capture Kharkiv in the early stages of their invasion but were pushed back. They launched a new ground offensive in the Kharkiv region in May.
\n\u201cWe need strong decisions from our partners to stop this terror,\u201d Zelenskyy said in a post on social media.
\n\u201cWe need long-range capabilities,\u201d he added, referring to Kyiv\u2019s appeals to allies to lift restrictions on the use of Western-supplied missiles inside Russian territory.
\n\u201cWe need the implementation of air defence agreements for Ukraine. This is about saving lives,\u201d he added.
\nEarlier, Russian raids in the region of Sumy, which neighbours Kharkiv, left at least two people dead and eight wounded, local authorities said.
\nThe Kremlin has repeatedly said that its forces do not target civilian infrastructure in Ukraine.
\nEarlier on Friday, Russia said that its forces had captured three more villages in eastern Ukraine, where it is advancing even as Kyiv mounts a major cross-border assault into Russian territory.
\nIn a briefing published on its Telegram page, Russia\u2019s defence ministry said its forces had seized settlements in Ukraine\u2019s Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv regions.
\nMoscow appears to be focusing its firepower on the key logistics hub of Pokrovsk, where Kyiv says the fighting is intense and \u201cdifficult.\u201d
\n\u201cThe most difficult situation remains in the Pokrovsk direction. The enemy is trying to break through the defences of our troops,\u201d Ukraine\u2019s commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskii said on Friday.
\nHe also said Kyiv\u2019s troops were continuing to press forward in Russia\u2019s western Kursk region, where they claimed earlier this week to have taken control of 100 border settlements.
\nMeanwhile, European Union defence ministers have agreed the bloc\u2019s training of Ukrainian forces should take place as close as possible to the war-torn country but not on Ukrainian territory, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Friday.
\nSpeaking after a meeting of the ministers in Brussels, Borrell also said they had agreed the EU\u2019s training mission should aim to train 75,000 Ukrainian troops by the end of the year \u2013 having trained 60,000 up until now.
\nSeveral EU countries, including Estonia, France and Sweden, support training soldiers in Ukraine, but other countries, including Hungary, fear such a move could lead to conflict escalation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A 14-year-old girl was among those killed, Interior Minister Igor Klymenko says, and 55 others were wounded Kharkiv A Russian attack on the the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv has killed at least six people, including a 14-year-old girl, and wounded dozens of others, Ukrainian officials have said. \u201cOccupiers killed a child right on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":428452,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-428432","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n