Ukraine-Russia war – live: Putin’s forces keep pressure on Avdiivka as six killed in Kharkiv strike

Officials in southern Ukraine said on Sunday that the Russian military had used a record number of aerial bombs over the country’s Kherson region in the past 24 hours.

Natalia Humeniuk, a spokeswoman for the Ukrainian military’s Operational Command South, said 36 missiles had been recorded over the area, with some villages being hit by several strikes.

Six people have been killed and at least 14 injured in a Russian missile attack that hit a postal distribution centre in the war-devastated northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, Ukrainian officials said.

“Russian missiles hit the Nova Poshta centre – an ordinary civilian object,” President Volodymyr Zelenksiy said on the Telegram messaging app.

He posted a video showing s building with windows blown out and construction materials strewn about, with red trucks with Nova Poshta written in Ukrainian in front of it.

Oleh Synehubov, the governor of the broader Kharkiv region of which the city of Kharkiv is the administrative centre, said several of the injured were in serious condition in hospital.

Those killed and injured were employees of the postal centre, Synehubov said on Telegram. Police said the workers did not have time to run to the shelter, because the siren sounded a second before impact.

Reuters could not independently verify the reports. There was no immediate comment from Russia. Both sides deny targeting civilians in the war that Russia launched against its neighbour in February 2022.

Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, was devastated in the early days of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Three Ukrainian missiles heading for targets in Crimea were downed on Sunday over a Russian-held area of Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, the Russia-installed governor said.

Vladimir Saldo, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said the missiles were downed over the town of Henichesk.

Russian troops occupied Kherson region in the first days of the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, but Ukrainian forces have regained control of the region’s main town and areas on the west bank of the Dnipro River. Russia annexed Crimea in 2014.

Officials in southern Ukraine said on Sunday that the Russian military had used a record number of aerial bombs over the country’s Kherson region in the past 24 hours.

Natalia Humeniuk, a spokeswoman for the Ukrainian military’s Operational Command South, said 36 missiles had been recorded over the area, with some villages being hit by several strikes.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he spoke by phone with U.S. President Joe Biden about Washington’s future support for Kyiv, and Russian President Vladimir Putin visited a military base near the Ukrainian border, as the warring countries laid plans for the winter and next year’s combat operations.

Almost 20 months of war have sapped both sides’ military resources. The fighting is likely to settle into positional and attritional warfare during the approaching wintry weather, analysts say, with little change along the more than 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line.

Zelenskyy said late Thursday he spoke to Biden about “a significant support package” for Ukraine. Western help has been crucial for Ukraine’s war effort.

The British government has been accused of failing to address the rising threat of political poisonings in the UK after an A-Level student presented a report to the House of Lords highlighting its inaction.

Labour peer Baroness Kennedy KC, who chaired the panel in the Palace of Westminster on Thursday, highlighted Sophia Browder’s “revelatory” research but added it was “embarrassing” for the government that a 17 year-old was having to point out its shortcomings.

Sophia is the daughter of financier Bill Browder, formerly the largest portfolio investor in Russia before being declared a national security threat by Vladimir Putin in 2005.

The British Army’s Royal Engineers have trained Ukrainian civilian engineers how to defend their energy sector from Russian attacks this winter.

Damage and destruction of critical national infrastructure (CNI) by Russian missile and drone attacks has represented one of the greatest threats to the lives and safety of Ukrainian civilians since the invasion.

The two-week training package was developed after a request from Ukraine.

In the humble backyard of a destroyed house, a 13-year-old chops firewood to get ready for winter. His mother, Tetiana Yarema, has been preparing for months as she remembers last winter’s Russian strikes on the energy infrastructure that plunged Ukraine into darkness.

“Those were dark days. I didn’t want anything. I just wanted to pack my things and go abroad,” said Yarema, 48, who says she ended up staying because of her son’s insistence.

For the Yarema family, like millions of other Ukrainians touched by Russia’s war on Ukraine, winter is an especially challenging time.

Six people died in a missile strike late on Saturday night (21 October) on a mail depot in the city of Kharkiv, Ukraine.

Another 14 people were injured in the blast, which is believed to have been caused by a Russian S-300 rocket, Kharkiv governor Oleh Syniehubov said on social media.

All of the victims were employees of private Ukrainian postal and courier Nova Poshta.

In a statement, the company said that the air raid siren had sounded just moments before the attack, leaving those inside the depot with no time to reach shelter.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky described the strike as an attack on an “ordinary civilian object.”