Russian drone attacks kill two and injure nine across Kharkiv Oblast
Russian drone strikes on Kharkiv and the surrounding region killed two civilians and injured nine others on March 25, 2026, according to the Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov, Oleh Syniehubov, head of the Kharkiv Oblast Military Administration, and the Kharkiv Oblast Prosecutor’s Office.
The aftermath of the Russian attack. / Photo: Prosecutor’s OfficeTerekhov reported that a Russian strike hit an area near a residential building in Kharkiv’s Kholodnohirskyi District. Cars caught fire, and windows were blown out in nearby flats.
In the Novobavarskyi District, a drone struck a residential area. A gas supply system was damaged, the roof of a house caught fire, and windows were shattered in several houses and apartment buildings.
The aftermath of the Russian attack. / Photo: Prosecutor’s OfficeSyniehubov said three women aged 66, 70, and 84, and a 71-year-old man sustained blast injuries. One of the women is in serious condition. Later, the Kharkiv Regional Prosecutor’s Office reported that a 70-year-old woman passed away in the hospital this evening after sustaining injuries during a Russian attack on the Kholodnohirskyi District of Kharkiv. Consequently, the criminal proceedings have been reclassified under Part 2 of Article 438 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine — committing a war crime that resulted in the death of a person.
A 48-year-old man and a 15-year-old girl suffered acute stress reactions. Another man, aged 58, who also sustained blast injuries, was taken to a hospital.
In addition, a Russian drone struck a civilian car in the Zolochiv “hromada,” a local government area that includes one or more nearby settlements, killing a 61-year-old man.
The Kharkiv Oblast Prosecutor’s Office later reported that the number of people injured in the strikes on Kharkiv had risen to 9. The prosecutors also clarified that at around 11:40 a.m., Russian forces used Geran-2 attack drones to strike the two Kharkiv districts.
In other news related to war, Oleksandr Pertsovskyi, CEO of Ukrzaliznytsia companyі , reported that Russia is intensifying its strikes on Ukraine’s railway infrastructure. Since the onset of the full-scale invasion in February 2022, approximately 5,000 attacks have been recorded, with over 10% of those occurring in the first few months of 2026. cites Pertsovskyi news agency Interfax-Ukraine. He added that the shelling has resulted in significant damage to locomotives, passenger carriages, and railway stations.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has stated in his evening address that Russia is preparing a large-scale operation against Ukraine’s water supply systems in the coming months. This potential shift in tactics suggests that Moscow aims to weaponize access to clean water as part of its ongoing campaign against critical civilian infrastructure.
Meanwhile, Zelenskyy, in an interview with Reuters, said that the United States is offering Ukraine security guarantees in return for the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from the unoccupied parts of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts. He said that U.S. President Donald Trump has chosen a strategy of applying pressure on Ukraine rather than on Russia when it comes to ending the war. He said the US side is ready to finalize the security guarantees document only if Ukraine agrees to withdraw from Donbas.
The head of the Ukrainian state said that Washington is focused on its own conflict with Iran, so Donald Trump is putting pressure on Ukraine in an attempt to bring the war to a quick end.
He said Russia, which is demanding the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the east, is betting on Washington losing interest in the talks and eventually walking away.
Zelenskyy has been criticized by politicians and constitutionalists for his plan to submit territorial questions to a referendum in Ukraine, as Ukrainian law forbids such referendums. Ukrainian legislation strictly prohibits the ceding of any territories of Ukraine; such actions are classified as high treason under the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
The New York Times reported that at the beginning of 2026, the Kremlin faced the risk of a severe economic crisis that could have prompted Russian leader Vladimir Putin to reconsider the war against Ukraine. However, rapid shifts in global politics — specifically the escalation in the Middle East — effectively relieved some of the pressure on Moscow and altered its strategic calculations.
The newspaper said that, after the start of the war in Iran, the conditions for conciliation were overturned in one fell swoop. Amid buoyant oil prices, Western division and American overreach, the pressure on Putin to come to terms ebbed away.
“Oil prices surged above $100 a barrel and, in a major reversal, the United States lifted sanctions on Russian oil. Demand for Russian fertilizer soared as the world reeled from disruptions to food supplies. All of a sudden, the economic problems bedeviling Russia seemed to evaporate,” the newspaper noted.
Donald Trump took office pledging to end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours — a promise that went unfulfilled. Since returning to the White House, his administration has eased sanctions on Russian oil and repeatedly sided with Moscow in war talks, prompting critics and some analysts to argue that U.S. policy has increasingly aligned with Russian interests.
Previously, the Ukrainian OSINT Varta team, in collaboration with the Lex Talionis project, published an interactive map containing data on more than 6,000 enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex and their 1.2 million employees. The interactive map provides descriptions of activities and specific developments for each enterprise, as well as a categorization system that allows filtering by type.
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