UKRAINE, KHARKIV OBLAST, Dec. 15 — Over the past week, Russian troops launched airstrikes at at least 42 settlements of the Kharkiv region, killing a person and injuring 18 people, including a 10-year-old girl, reported Oleh Syniehubov, the oblast’s governor. 

Russia attacks the Kharkiv region often because of its proximity to the border and to the temporarily occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. According to war analysts, their military aims in the area are to occupy the rest of thoseregions and move deeper into Kharkiv oblast. 

Overall, authorities reported that, over the last week, Russian troops hit the region with four missiles of unidentified type, 14 glide bombs, 41 Geran-2 kamikaze drones, 2 Lancet drones, 12 Molniya drones, 10 first-person view (FPV) drones, and 50 drones that aren’t identified yet. 

In Kharkiv, Russian airstrikes damaged an administrative building. Across the oblast, Moscow damaged the civilian infrastructure of the Kharkiv districts the most, Syniehubov says. There, the shelling damaged residential apartment buildings, 10 houses, power lines, a gas station, and six cars. 

Russian strikes also affected the Bohoduhiv district significantly, the governor adds, with six houses, one civilian business, power lines, a cafe, three outbuildings, two cars, a garage, and a truck damaged. 

A man who stepped on an explosive device also died in Kharkiv oblast over the last week. 

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