INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Russian attacks on eastern and southern Ukraine killed at least three people on Wednesday, officials said, as Kyiv called for more Patriot
air defense systems to battle a surge in missile strikes.Moscow has escalated aerial attacks on Ukraine in the past few weeks, targeting key
city of Kharkiv, which has been reeling from power outages due to the strikes, officials said shelling killed at least one person and
injured 16 others."Four children are among the wounded
Apartment buildings were damaged
The number of victims may increase," the region's Governor Oleh Siniehubov said.The governor of Ukraine's southern Kherson region, which is
partially occupied by Russia, said one woman had been killed in a drone attack on the village of Mykhailivka."A 61-year-old local resident
was fatally wounded in her own home," the official, Oleksandr Prokudin, wrote on social media.And in the southeastern city of Nikopol,
officials said artillery fire killed a 55-year-old man, while a ballistic missile strike on the coastal territory of Mykolaiv left eight
wounded.The Ukrainian air force said Russia had launched 13 Iranian-designed attack drones overnight and that 10 were downed over the
Kharkiv region, the neighboring Sumy region and near the capital Kyiv.During an online briefing on Wednesday, Ukraine's Foreign Minister
Dmytro Kuleba called again for urgent deliveries of air defense systems he said were crucial in warding off the increase in attacks."The
peculiarity of the current Russian attacks is the intensive use of ballistic missiles that can reach targets at extremely high speeds,
leaving little time for people to take cover and causing significant destruction," Kuleba said."Patriot and other similar systems are
They are designed to protect lives, not take them," he said.Ukraine has been forced onto the defensive in the past few months as it
struggles with ammunition shortages and delays to a $60 billion aid package from Washington.It has also been forced to concede ground to
Russia on the eastern front, warning earlier this week of "difficult" battles around the eastern city of Chas?v Yar.Ukrainian President
Volodymyr Zelensky was in the Sumy region on Wednesday, where he met with soldiers recovering from their injuries.The army's ground forces
commander warned last week that Russia was building a group of over 100,000 soldiers in advance of what may be a major offensive this
summer.Russia meanwhile announced that its air defence systems had shot down 18 rockets near the border city of Belgorod, which has recently
seen an increase in fatal Ukrainian attacks.The governor of Russia's Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said two people were wounded
during the barrage and later drone attack.
