KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — President Volodymyr Zelensky warned Sunday that Russia is preparing to intensify its offensive along Ukraine’s northern border after the death toll rose to 14 in an aerial bomb attack on a major building materials store in the city of Kharkiv.
The bombing of Kharkov on Saturday afternoon also left 43 injured and 16 missing, Kharkov Governor Oleh Syniehubov initially said after the attack.
In a video statement from Kharkiv, Zelenskyy said Russia is preparing offensive actions 90 kilometers northwest of Ukraine’s second-largest city. He said the Russians are “assembling a new group of troops near our border.”
He did not specify where the troops would be gathered, but Ukrainian officials have expressed serious concerns about the Sumy region. Both the city of Kharkov and Sumy, with approximately 250,000 inhabitants, are within about 25 kilometers of the Russian border.
Moscow’s forces have captured villages in the Kharkiv region in recent weeks as part of a broad assault, and analysts say they may be trying to get within artillery range of the city. Ukrainian authorities have evacuated more than 11,000 people from the region since the offensive began on May 10.
Russian forces are carrying out offensive attacks across the 1,000-kilometer front line, with battles in the Khasiv Yar direction of the Donetsk region, where “the intensity of hostilities is quite high,” according to a statement from the Ukrainian military. General staff. “The armed forces are taking measures to prevent the enemy’s advance,” the statement said.
Russia launched broad missile and drone attacks on much of Ukraine overnight. Ukrainian officials said air defense units intercepted 31 Shahed drones and 12 cruise missiles launched by Russia in the Mykolaiv, Odesa, Dnipropetrovsk, Poltava, Zaporizhia, Khmelnytskyi, Kirovohrad, Vinnytsia and Chernihiv regions.
In total, Russia launched fourteen missiles and more than three dozen drones, according to a statement from the Ukrainian Air Force. It is not clear what damage may have been caused by missiles and drones that were not shot down.
The governor of Russia’s Belgorod region, which lies across the border from Ukraine, said four people were injured in Ukrainian attacks overnight. The Russian Defense Ministry said seven drones were shot down over the Kursk region and three over Oryol, both north of Belgorod.
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Associated Press writer Jim Heintz in Tallinn, Estonia contributed to this report.
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