Two people including a three-year-old child have been killed and around 28 others injured in a Russian strike on Kharkiv, Ukrainian officials have said.
A multi-storey residential apartment block was almost completely destroyed in the dual missile attack on Friday afternoon, which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called “heinous”.
Russia’s Defence Ministry denied reports of an attack, suggesting the blast had been caused by Ukrainian ammunition detonating.
The strike comes ahead of crunch talks on a US-brokered peace plan in Kyiv on Saturday.
Zelensky says around 15 countries are expected to attend the talks, along with representatives from the EU and Nato, with a US delegation joining the meeting via video link.
Leaders of the so-called coalition of the willing are then set to meet in France on 6 January.
Officials in Kharkiv said the bodies of a woman and a three-year-old child were found in the rubble, with preliminary information suggesting the pair may have been a mother and son.
“Unfortunately, this is how the Russians treat life and people – they continue killing, despite all efforts by the world, and especially by the United States, in the diplomatic process,” Zelensky wrote on X.
Of the 28 injured, which included a six-month-old baby, 16 have been taken to hospital.
A search and rescue operation is ongoing, with more than 80 volunteers working at the scene, according to regional governor Oleh Syniehubov.
The Russian Defence Ministry said in a statement on Telegram that its armed forces “neither planned nor launched attacks using missile weapons or aircraft weapons within the city of Kharkiv”.
It added that footage from before the attack showed “heavy smoke of unknown origin”, which it cited as evidence of ammunition detonated by Ukrainian armed forces.
The ministry also alleged that the reports were seeking to distract attention from a New Year’s Eve strike on a hotel in a Russian-held part of the southern Kherson region of Ukraine.
Russia has accused Ukraine of killing at least 27 people and injuring more than 30 others in the drone strike on a New Year’s party in the village of Khorly on the Black Sea.
The BBC has not been able to independently verify either these claims or the number of casualties.
Ukraine told the BBC it would not directly respond to sources of information such as claims from governors of occupied regions.
It added that it adhered to the norms of international humanitarian law and conducted strikes exclusively against military targets.
Russia’s Investigative Committee said it had opened an investigation into the attack, while the Russian foreign ministry accused Zelensky of “seeking to intimidate the populations of the reunited Russian regions, who have forever linked their fates with Russia through referendums”.
