Russian drone strike kills three Ukrainian toddlers and their father

KYIV — Four people, including three toddlers and their father, were killed in a Russian drone strike in eastern Ukraine that also injured their pregnant mother, local emergency services said.The overnight attacks on Ukraine came as United States-led efforts to end the nearly four-year war continue to progress at a slow, bogged-down pace.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Wednesday that a Russian drone had struck a private family home in the town of Bohodukhiv in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region late on Tuesday, killing four and injuring their pregnant mother, the sole survivor.Images released by Ukraine’s emergency service showed firefighters battling a blaze in a destroyed house, with smoke rising through the beams of the shattered roof.The family only arrived in the town of Bohodukhiv, some 60 kilometers west of Kharkiv, the previous day after fleeing shelling, said Oleg Synegubov, the governor of the Kharkiv region.“(They) had just evacuated from Zolochiv, trying to escape from constant shelling and find a safer place to live. This was their first night in the new place,” he said on Telegram.Synegubov named the victims as two-year-old twin boys Ivan and Vladislav, their one-year-old sister Miroslava, and their 34-year-old father Gryhoriy. Earlier on Wednesday, authorities said Miroslava was the oldest of the three siblings – a confusion that could have been caused by the fact that the family was new to the area.Police said the mother, who is 35 weeks pregnant, suffered head wounds and burns. She has now been discharged from the hospital, said Synegubov, who also clarified the identity of another survivor, a 73-year-old neighbor whom police had wrongly identified as the children’s grandmother.The home where the family was staying was completely destroyed in the strike and subsequent fire. Photos from the scene show burnt rubble, with charred toys clearly visible in what used to be the inside of the home.At least two more children were killed in a separate overnight Russian drone attack in the northeastern Sumy region, where several districts were targeted over the last 24 hours, Ukrainian authorities said.Sixteen people had been injured in the latest attacks, authorities said.Zelensky said the attacks showed Russia was not serious about peace.“Each such Russian strike undermines confidence in everything that is being done diplomatically to end this war,” he said in a statement on Telegram. — Agencies