Russian airstrike on Kharkiv apartment block kills six people

A Russian attack on the northeastern city of Kharkiv using powerful plane-launched glide bombs killed six people, including a 14-year-old girl on a playground, and wounded 47 others, regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said.

The bombs struck five locations across the city, which had a pre-war population of around 1.4 million people, the governor said.

One of the bombs hit a 12-story apartment block, setting the building ablaze and trapping at least one person on an upper floor. Emergency crews searching for survivors feared the building could collapse.

President Volodymr Zelenskyy pointed to the Kharkiv strikes as further evidence that Western partners should scrap restrictions on what the Ukrainian military can target with donated weapons.

The Kharkiv strike “wouldn’t have happened if our defence forces had the capability to destroy Russian military aviation at its bases. We need strong decisions from our partners to stop this terror,” he said.

Also on Friday Zelenskyy fired the commander of the country’s air force Friday, four days after an F-16 warplane that Ukraine received from its Western partners crashed during a Russian bombardment.

The order to dismiss Lt. Gen. Mykola Oleshchuk was published on the presidential website.

“We need to protect people. Protect personnel. Take care of all our soldiers,” Zelenskyy said in an address minutes after the order was published. He said Ukraine needs to strengthen its army on the command level.

U.S. experts have joined the Ukrainian investigation into the crash, the air force said.

F-16s are one of the weapons that could be used to hit Russian bases behind the front line.

Oleshchuk said on Telegram that “a detailed analysis" was already being conducted into why the F-16 jet went down on