Russia killed three generations of a family – including a one-year-old baby – as Vladimir Putin unleashed his vengeance for Ukrainian strikes that destroyed his strategic bomber aircraft.
The attack came just hours after Donald Trump spoke with Putin. The US President said the Russian leader ‘very strongly’ told him that Russia will retaliate for Ukraine’s weekend drone attacks on four air bases.
The US assesses the attack hit as many as 20 Russian warplanes, destroying around 10 of them, according to two officials – a figure that is about half the number estimated by Zelensky but was still humiliating to Moscow.
Putin kept to his word that Russia would hit back, launching devastating strikes on civilians in Chernihiv and Kharkiv, as Ukraine’s President Zelensky warned that the despot ‘feels impunity’ and ‘is showing the middle finger to the entire world’.
At least six people were killed and six more wounded in hospital after last night’s onslaught by Russia, and have been hospitalized, regional governor Viacheslav Chaus said Thursday.
According to him, six Shahed-type drones struck residential areas of Pryluky early Thursday morning, causing severe damage to residential buildings.
Among the dead were a woman, 46, her daughter, 26, and grandson, 16 months, who police said were found under rubble.
Hours later, seventeen people were wounded in a Russian drone strike on the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv early Thursday, including children, a pregnant woman, and a 93-year-old woman, according to regional authorities.
A firefighter stands by a fire and points to a hole following a drone strike in Kharkiv on June 5
According to authorities, six Shahed-type drones struck residential areas of Pryluky early Thursday morning, causing severe damage to residential buildings
Firefighters put out the fire following Russia’s overnight drone attack in the Pryluky, Chernihiv region
A satellite image shows a destroyed TU 22 aircraft in the aftermath of a drone strike at the Belaya air base, Irkutsk region, Russia
The attack came just hours after Donald Trump spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin
At around 1.05 am, Shahed-type drones struck two apartment buildings in the city’s Slobidskyi district, causing fires and destroying several private vehicles.
‘By launching attacks while people sleep in their homes, the enemy once again confirms its tactic of insidious terror,’ regional head Oleh Syniehubov wrote on Telegram.
One Russian drone hit the 16th floor of a residential building, while another struck the wall of a five-story building.
Among the wounded were children whose ages were given as 13, nine and seven.
Mayor Ihor Terekhov called it ‘targeted terror’ against civilians by the Putin regime.
One woman resident of Kharkiv region said: ‘I am recording this at 2am, I can’t sleep. The night started with a strike of Iskander around 11pm, and then the drones came.
‘I went to the bathroom first, it’s my temporary shelter number one, but then there were six explosions one after another, so I am saying this on the way to the basement.
‘Praying to God I’ll be out alive in the morning.’
Russia also launched a missile strike on a Ukrainian military training camp in Poltava region, leaving a number injured.
The US embassy in Kyiv has warned about the threat of major new Russian airstrikes after Putin told Trump he ‘will have to respond’ to Ukraine’s June 1 drone attacks on Russia – dubbed Operation Spiderweb.
A satellite image shows a cleanup of debris in the aftermath of a drone strike at the Olenya air base, Russia, after Ukrainian drone strikes
A column of flames and black smoke rises over a targeted plane during Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb
Smoke billows in multiple locations across a Russian airfield following the extensive drone strikes
New satellite images of Belaya airbase have shown severe damage to at least three Tu-95s, according to analysts
The strikes took place on Sunday, with footage released today showing flames engulfing aircraft at four military airfields (pictured Belaya Airbase)
Russian aircraft were damaged but not destroyed in the attack, and will be restored, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov insisted in an interview with the state news agency TASS.
‘The equipment in question, as was also stated by representatives of the Ministry of Defence, was not destroyed but damaged. It will be restored,’ Ryabkov said.
But US officials described the attack as highly significant, with one of them cautioning that it could drive Moscow to a far more severe negotiating position in the US-brokered talks to end more than three years of war.
Zelensky said he would consider creating private armies which are used by Putin, for example the notorious Wagner military company.
‘I will now start thinking about it after such ultimatums,’ he said.
‘Facts are stubborn things. Since the beginning of this year, the Russian army has carried out strikes on Ukraine using almost 27,700 aerial bombs, almost 11,200 Shaheds and almost 9,000 strike drones of other types, as well as more than 700 missiles, including ballistic ones.
Head of the Ukraine’s Security Service Vasyl Maliuk looks at a map of an airfield, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in an unknown location in Ukraine
‘This is in less than half a year. This is the pace of Russian strikes, and they have taken this pace in Russia quite deliberately from the first days of a full-scale war.
‘Russia has rebuilt its state, social and economic system in order to be able to kill people in other countries with impunity and on a massive scale.’
After Trump’s phone conversation with Putin, Zelensky said: ‘Many have spoken to Russia at various levels.
‘No talks have led not only to a reliable peace, but even to an end to the war.
‘Unfortunately, Putin feels impunity and, even after all the terrible Russian strikes, he is allegedly preparing some more ‘responses’.’
Calling for new sanctions and pressure, he said: ‘If the world reacts weakly to Putin’s threats, then he perceives this as the world’s readiness to turn a blind eye to his actions.
‘When he does not feel strength and pressure, but feels weakness, he always commits new crimes.
‘He regards such an attitude as tacit permission – permission for new atrocities, new blows, new murders.’
