A Russian drone strike on the Ukrainian city of Bogodukhiv killed three children and their father, an official said on Wednesday.
Two one-year-old boys and a two-year-old girl died as a result of an enemy strike on a "private residential house" in the eastern city that sits close to Russia's border, the regional prosecutor's office said on Wednesday.
A 34-year-old man, identified by prosecutors as the children's father, who was also in the house died from his wounds.
"As a result of the strike, the house was completely destroyed and caught fire, and the family was trapped under the rubble," prosecutors said in a statement posted on Telegram.
A woman, identified by prosecutors as the children's mother who is eight months pregnant, was injured in the blast and sustained "a traumatic brain injury, acoustic barotrauma, and thermal burns", AFP quoted prosecutors as saying.
The regional prosecutor's office said it has launched a pre-trial investigation "into the commission of a war crime resulting in the death of civilians".
Ukrainian and Russian officials have held US-mediated talks in Abu Dhabi aimed at ending Moscow's four-year invasion.
The two sides conducted a prisoner swap last week, but an agreement to end the nearly four-year war seems a way off.
According to the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU), around 15,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed since Russia invaded in February 2022.
HRMMU said that 2025 was the deadliest year with more than 2,500 civilians killed.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy assembled his top military officers on Tuesday to discuss shortcomings in air defense and other aspects of protecting civilians from attack.
Zelenskiy, speaking in his nightly video address, also assessed how local authorities in Ukraine's cities were tackling the aftermath of massive Russian attacks, particularly in ensuring high-rise apartments had power and heating.
Zelenskiy said he held long discussions with the military's Commander-in-Chief, Oleksandr Syrskyi, the chief of the general staff, Andrii Hnatov, and Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov.
"Many changes are happening right now in the work of air defense. In some regions, the way teams operate, interceptors, mobile fire units, the entire small air defense component is being practically rebuilt completely," Zelenskiy said.
"But this is only one element of defense that requires changes. Changes will happen."
