Six people, including two girls, were killed when a Russian drone hit a park in Ukraine’s Kharkiv Oblast on Oct. 19, regional officials said, with 15 others injured.
The Kharkiv Regional Military Administration gave the toll in its Oct. 20 morning update. It listed the girls’ ages as one and 11 and said seven of the injured were children.
Prosecutors placed the strike at the central park in Nova Vodolaha at about 4:30 p.m. local time (9:30 a.m. EDT; 13:30 UTC). Their preliminary assessment identified the aircraft as a Geran-3 drone.
Ukrainian Interior Minister Ivan Vyhivskyi said families with children were at the park. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the younger girl died in her stroller and her mother, Inna, later died in a hospital. Zelenskyy called the strike “pure atrocity” and urged more air defenses for Ukraine and continued sanctions against Russia.
Police said the strike damaged a café and a car, along with an apartment building and a private home. They opened an investigation under Ukraine’s war crimes statute. The investigation is not a finding that a war crime occurred.
