UPDATE - 3 killed, 4 injured in shelling, rocket strikes in eastern Ukraine’s Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia

UPDATES WITH STATEMENT FROM UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT

By Burc Eruygur

ISTANBUL (AA) - Shelling by Russian forces in eastern Ukraine’s Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia regions early Wednesday killed three people and injured four others, according to local authorities.

“Another act of terrorism by the Russians. Around 7:40 a.m. (0540GMT), the shelling took place in the city of Kupiansk. A nine-story residential building and a polyclinic building were damaged. Unfortunately, two people died -- a 55-year-old woman and a 68-year-old man. One man was hospitalized, another was treated on the spot,” Kharkiv Governor Oleh Synyehubov said on Telegram.

Synyehubov noted that a private house was also damaged in Kupiansk as a result of the shelling, and several houses and farm buildings were destroyed in the city of Vovchansk.

Fatalities also included a 1-year-old who was killed when a missile hit a maternity ward at a local hospital.

“At night, Russian monsters fired huge rockets at the small maternity ward of Vilnius Hospital. Grief fills our hearts -- a baby ... has been killed. Rescuers are working on the spot,” Zaporizhzhia Governor Oleksandr Starukh said on Telegram.

Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the deputy head of the Ukrainian Presidential Office, later issued a statement on Telegram, saying that two doctors were injured by the blast in the maternity hospital.

"The enemy has once again decided to try to achieve with terror and murder what he wasn’t able to achieve for nine months and won’t be able to achieve. Instead, he will only be held to account for all the evil he brought to our country." President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in reaction to the shelling.

As of Monday, civilian casualties in the ongoing Moscow-Kyiv war reached 16,784, including 6,595 deaths and 10,189 injuries, according to the UN figures.