A drone view of a damaged apartment building following a Russian air strike near Kharkiv, Ukraine, on May 14, 2024. Around 4 pm on May 14, the Russian military hit Kharkiv with UMPB D-30 guided air bombs. (Vlada Liberova/Libkos/Getty Images)
At around 1 a.m. on May 17, a lengthy air raid alert was finally lifted in Kharkiv Oblast after officials reported numerous Russian drone strikes and a ballistic missile threat.
The air alert had lasted over 16 and a half hours, the longest since Russia's full-scale invasion began in February 2022.
Six explosions were recorded in Kharkiv throughout May 16. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
Kharkiv Oblast Governor Oleh Syniehubov confirmed that one of the drone strikes caused a fire in Kharkiv’s Kholodnohirskyi district.
Kharkiv has been frequently targeted in recent weeks, and fighting continues around several villages near the Russian border following a recent Russian incursion.
Sonya Bandouil is a North American news editor for The Kyiv Independent. She previously worked in the fields of cybersecurity and translating, and she also edited for various journals in NYC.
Sonya has a Master’s degree in Global Affairs from New York University, and a Bachelor’s degree in Music from the University of Houston, in Texas.
The bodies of a 3-year-old boy and a woman, likely his mother, were found in the rubble of an apartment building following Russian strikes. Search and rescue operations are still active at 3 a.m. local time, according to governor Syniehubov.
The news comes a few hours after Zelensky announced he would appoint Kyrylo Budanov, head of the military intelligence, to take charge of the President’s Office.
Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko will soon give the president a list of possible candidates to replace Serhii Deineko as head of Ukraine's State Border Guard Service.
HUR has published video footage of Kapustin's staged "death," which the agency used to collect a $500,000 bounty. The video shows a drone strike on a minibus shortly after Kapustin is seen entering the vehicle.
Along the Dnipro River in southern Ukraine, the front line has remained largely static, but fighting continues every day. The Kyiv Independent’s Francis Farrell and Olena Zashko embedded with Ukraine’s forces in Kherson Oblast, following FPV drone and night bomber teams tasked with defending river islands.
The poll also revealed that 69% of Ukrainians support a peace plan that would freeze the war with security guarantees, as long as Ukraine is not forced to officially recognize Russian-occupied territories as part of Russia, Kyiv International Institute of Sociology said.
Ukraine's Foreign Intelligence Service warned on Jan. 2 that Russia may be preparing a provocation as part of its efforts to disrupt the U.S.-mediated peace talks.
Earlier on Jan. 1, Volodymyr Saldo, a Ukrainian politician turned top Russian proxy head of Russian-occupied parts of Kherson Oblast, accused Kyiv of launching three drones at a hotel and a cafe on the Black Sea coast. Saldo claimed that the alleged New Year drone strike on the village of Khorly killed 24 people, including a child, and wounded more than 50.
Russian forces occupied 4,336 square kilometers (1,674 square miles) of Ukrainian territory in 2025, accounting for less than 1% of the country, the Ukrainian open-source mapping project DeepState reported in an year-end assessment published on Jan. 1.
Since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion, over 100 animals and five people, including employees and volunteers, have been killed by Russian forces on the eco-park's grounds.
