Ukraine needs "strong decisions" from its partners to stop the terror that Russia is perpetrating in Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on August 30 after a Russian air strike on Kharkiv hit a high-rise residential building and playground, killing at least seven people, including a 14-year-old girl.
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Scores of people were injured, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said, accusing Russia of targeting "civilian objects, peaceful people, children."
Local authorities said five strikes hit the city in eastern Ukraine. The worst was on the 12-story apartment building, where Regional Governor Oleh Synyehubov said there were many victims whose limbs had to be amputated.
He raised the number of dead from six to seven late on August 30 after a woman's body was retrieved from the charred building.
"As of now, we have information on 59 victims -- among them 9 children aged 5 to 16 years. People continue to go to hospitals," he said on Telegram.
In his evening address, Zelenskiy identified the 14-year-old girl as Sofia and said she would have turned 15 in the fall.
He said the strike was carried out by a Russian guided aerial bomb and said it would not have happened if Ukraine's defense forces had the ability to target military sites on Russian territory.
"This strike was a Russian guided aerial bomb. A blow that would not have happened if our defense forces had the ability to destroy Russian military aircraft where they are based. We need strong solutions from our partners to stop this terror. This is an absolutely fair need. And there is no rational reason to limit Ukraine in defense. We need long-range capabilities," Zelenskiy said on Telegram.
The bombs that struck Kharkiv were fired from the Belgorod region, which lies to the north of Ukraine's Kharkiv region. Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of the Belgorod region, said late on August 30 that five people were killed and 37 were injured by Ukrainian rockets fired on the city of Belgorod.
"One woman and four men died on the spot from their wounds before the ambulance arrived," Gladkov said on Telegram. There are children among the wounded, and 10 people are in serious condition, he said.
In the village of Dubovoye, 13 cars were damaged, and two houses, another car, and a garage caught fire, he said, adding that firefighters quickly extinguished the flames.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, who met with his Ukrainian counterpart, Rustem Umerov, at the Pentagon on August 30, condemned recent Russian attacks on civilian targets.
"Let me be clear: It is never acceptable to target civilians, and Ukraine's resilience will help it prevail over [Russian President Vladimir] Putin's aggression and atrocities," Austin said as he hosted Umerov and Andriy Yermak, Zelenskiy's chief of staff, at the Pentagon.
Austin said the United States plans to advocate for a further expansion of the country's air defense at the Ukraine Contact Group meeting next week at Ramstein Air Base in Germany.
Umerov and Yermak briefed Austin about the situation on the battlefield, according to a statement from the president's office.
"Russia hit Ukraine with more than 400 missiles of various types and drones this week," the statement said. "The Ukrainian side noted that Ukraine needs to strengthen air defense to protect people and critical infrastructure."
Umerov thanked the U.S. and its allies for their support and said he wanted to inform Austin about the situation on the battlefield and the current needs of the Ukrainian military.
Elsewhere on the battlefield, Russian forces are conducting "two key tactical operations" as part of their offensive to capture the strategic city of Pokrovsk in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said on August 29.
The first is along the Novogrodivka-Hrodivka line east of Pokrovsk with the aim of advancing to the outskirts of the city. The second is along the Selydove-Ukrayinsk-Hirnyk line to the southeast with the aim of "eliminating vulnerabilities to Ukrainian counterattacks."
Paramedics carry a person rescued from an apartment building after a Russian air strike in Kharkiv on August 30.
The operations are seen by the Russian military as key to an "intensified offensive effort against Pokrovsk itself," ISW wrote.
The General Staff of the Ukrainian military said there had been 109 combat clashes during the day, and most of the fighting took place in the Pokrovsk area in the Donetsk region.
There was also fighting in the areas near Kupyansk and Lyman, the General Staff said in its late afternoon assessment on August 30. In total, Russian troops advanced in 11 directions, it said.
Zelenskiy in his evening address on August 30 named Pokrovsk as one of the most challenging areas.
"It is crucial that everyone, at all state levels, who is involved in this, really make their maximum efforts to ensure our resilience and that of our warriors," he said.