Moscow's Military Targeting of Civilian Infrastructure in Ukraine

"Each such Russian strike undermines trust in everything being done through diplomacy to end this war, and again and again proves that only strong pressure on Russia and clear security guarantees for Ukraine are the real key to stopping the killings." 

"[Ukraine is making] many changes [in the way it fights Russia's aerial attacks, particularly in short-range air defences; key issues include training and replenishing new troops]."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy 

A child's toy among the wreckage of a house in the north-eastern Ukrainian town of Bohodukhiv after a Russian drone strike    Kharkiv regional military administration

 

"We lost what is most precious — our future."

"There are no words to console the family; there is no prayer that could heal the heart of a mother who has lost her children."

Bohodukhiv mayor Volodymyr Bielyi   

A father and his three young children were killed when a Russian drone smashed into a home in the Kharkiv region of Ukraine's north-east. The mother of the children survived the blast that killed her husband and children. The mother, pregnant, was wounded, but survived the attack. The brick house was set on fire, the family trapped under the resulting rubble.

 

Two-year-old twin boys and their one-year-old sister died alongside their 34-year-old father. Rescue workers managed to extract their mother still alive. Information whether the unborn child also came through the ordeal was not given. A Geran-2, a Russian-produced version of an Iranian Shahed drone had struck the house in Bohodukhiv.

 

Aftermath of a Russian drone strike on a civilian household in Bohodukhiv, Kharkiv region, February 11, 2026. (Source: Kharkiv Regional Prosecutor’s Office)

 

The little family of five with another child on its way, was made up of twin brothers Ivan and Vladyslav, sister Myroslava and father Hyrhorii, and mother Olha. Olha escaped with slight burns and other minor injuries, treated in hospital and later released. She was 35 weeks into her pregnancy. The family had recently been evacuated from another town in the region. "It was their first night at the new place", observed Oleh Syniehubov, head of the Kharkiv regional military administration. 

 

Three days of mourning for the family was declared by the town's mayor, with national flags to be lowered and organized public events to be cancelled. "We will endure. We will remember. We will never forgive this horror on our land", stated Bohodukhiv's Mayor Volodymyr Bielyi. With a prewar population of 15,000, the town is located 22 kilometres from the Russian border.

 

Moscow always assures its detractors that the Russian military attacks only military infrastructure, never does it target civilian structures. According to public records, however, there is no Ukrainian military infrastructure in proximity to the house that was destroyed and those within it, on Tuesday. 

 

In 2025 alone, after three years of unrelenting bombardment of Ukraine's cities, 2,514 civilians were killed and 12,142 wounded, representing the deadliest year for civilians in Ukraine since 2022, through the intensified Russian aerial barrages, according to the U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine. The 2025 death toll was 31 percent higher than that of 2024, the year before. Ukrainians continue to endure constant aerial attacks by Russia. 

  

The family's house was completely destroyed in the Russian attack   Ukraine's DSNS emergencies service/Kharkiv region