Kiev [Ukraine], April 9: In light of the constant barrage of Russian airstrikes hitting the north-eastern city of Kharkiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has made a plea with international allies to deliver urgently needed air defence systems.
"It is quite obvious that the air defence capabilities available to us in Ukraine are not enough, and this is obvious to all our partners as well," Zelensky said in his evening video message on Sunday.
"We are looking for opportunities to give Kharkiv greater air defence," he said, urging all Ukrainian diplomats and international negotiators to seek agreements for new supplies.
Zelensky has long been calling for additional US-made Patriot air defence systems and previously said in a TV interview that his country needed at least 25 of these systems to fend off Russian attacks.
Ukraine, fending off a large-scale Russian invasion for over two years now, has once again noticed an increased Russian military focus on Kharkiv, currently taking more fire than all other cities.
According to the local prosecutor's office, two aerial bombs struck Kharkiv at midday on Sunday, injuring five people, while also damaging 13 apartment blocks and other buildings. On Friday night, six people were killed and 11 injured.
Meanwhile Ukrainian forces have been targeting Russian sites with drone strikes, and Russian authorities on Sunday blamed Ukrainian forces for a drone attack that threatened the Zaporizhzhya nuclear plant, the largest in Europe.
The were no injuries or damage from the drone that detonated over the facility's sixth reactor, wrote the Russian management of the occupied plant in eastern Ukraine on Telegram.
However the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN's nuclear watchdog, said the attack marked "serious incident with potential to undermine integrity of the reactor's containment system."
Source: Qatar Tribune