Volodymyr Zelenskiy claims Russian guided bomb hit Kharhiv residential building injuring at least 30 civilians

At least 30 people, including three children, were injured when a Russian guided bomb hit a high-rise residential building in Kharkiv in northeastern Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy says.

“The rescue operation in Kharkiv continues. A Russian air strike. An ordinary residential building, a multi-storey building, was damaged. There is a fire and rubble between the 9th and 12th floors,” Zelenskiy said on the Telegram messenger app.

He posted photos of smoke and fire billowing out of the windows of a multi-storey building.

Ukraine has said it needs to be allowed to use more powerful foreign-supplied weapons to inflict greater damage inside Russia and impair the ability of Russian forces to attack.

Russia denies intentionally targeting civilians despite having killed thousands of them since it invaded Ukraine in 2022.

Zelenskiy told CNN in an interview aired on Sunday that Ukrainian troops are suffering high losses because foreign arms were arriving too slowly to equip the armed forces properly.

He said the situation in the country’s east was “very tough,” adding that half of Ukraine’s brigades there were not equipped.

“So you lose a lot of people. You lose people because they are not in armed vehicles ... they don’t have artillery, they don’t have artillery rounds,” Zelenskiy said, speaking in English.

CNN said the interview had been conducted on Friday.

Zelenskiy said weapons aid packages promised by the United States and European countries were arriving very slowly.

“We need 14 brigades to be ready. Until now ... from these packages we didn’t equip even four,” he said.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan on Saturday said the US was working on a “substantial” new aid package for Ukraine.