Mother of famous Ukrainian athlete Kateryna Tabashnyk among a dozen dead in Kharkiv bombings

Russia fired a series of rockets at Ukraine’s Kharkiv region late Wednesday and Thursday night, killing at least 12 people, including an 11-year-old child and the mother of a famous Ukrainian athlete, according to local authorities.

Dozens more were injured in the strikes and rescuers were still busy pulling people from the rubble as of Thursday morning.

Kateryna Tabashnyk, a Ukrainian high jumper who competed in World Youth Championships and won gold at the 2013 European Junior Championships, said her mother was killed in the attacks.

“The Russian world took my mother’s life. They liberated me from my home and my whole life,” Tabashnyk wrote on Instagram, accompanied by a video of the fiery debris and her bombed-out home.

“My mother, I love you very much,” she wrote.

According to Oleg Synyehubov, the head of the Kharkiv regional administration, an 11-year-old child and six others were killed when a three-story apartment building was directly hit late on Wednesday.

“Last night was one of the most tragic nights for Kharkiv in the entire war. … Once again, peaceful residential areas with civilians have been hit by Russian terrorists,” Synyehubov wrote on Telegram.

The first attack also injured 17 people, he said.

More attacks soon followed just after 4 a.m. local time, with Russia bombarding the region with rockets while people were still fast asleep. At least three people were killed in one decimated apartment building, he said, and an entire family – including a 12-year-old – was killed in another, bringing the death toll to 12, he said in TV commentaries.

The Russian Defense Ministry claimed responsibility for the attacks but claimed they did not kill civilians but killed “more than 90 militants” at a “foreign mercenary” base.