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Russian drone strike on a park in Nova Vodolaha kills six, including an infant
The afternoon attack in the Kharkiv region hit families in the town's central park. Prosecutors have opened a war crimes investigation.
Key points
- A Russian drone hit the central park of Nova Vodolaha at about 4:30 pm local time on Monday.
- Six people were killed, among them an infant in a stroller, officials said.
- At least 15 people were injured, seven of them children, according to the governor.
A Russian drone struck the central park of Nova Vodolaha, a town in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, on Monday afternoon, killing six people, among them an infant in a stroller.
The attack came at about 4:30 pm local time, when the park was busy, according to the regional prosecutor’s office. Governor Oleh Syniehubov said at least 15 people were injured, seven of them children. Interior Minister Ivan Vyhivskyi said two women and the infant were among the dead, and that many of the people in the park were families with children. He said the strike made no military sense.
Investigators believe Russian forces used a Geran-3 jet-powered drone. Prosecutors opened a pre-trial investigation into a possible war crime.
“This cannot be treated as just another news story,” Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets wrote on Telegram. “The world must not get used to the killing of Ukrainian children and civilians.”
The strike came on a day when Russia had already hit 28 energy facilities across Ukraine overnight, leaving more than half a million households without power, and when Kyiv was still counting the damage from three waves of ballistic missiles on the capital.
Hours later, US President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House that Russia had “been fine on Ukraine” and “haven’t been doing much.” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said Ukraine faces a critical shortage of Patriot interceptors and has pressed Washington to release missiles that NATO allies have already paid for.