Russian shelling killed eleven Ukrainians and injured dozens more in Kharkiv on Monday morning, according to Ukrainian officials.
“Kharkiv has just been massively fired upon by grads (rockets),” wrote interior ministry adviser Anton Herashchenko in a post on Facebook.
The attacks come amid ongoing peace talks between officials on both sides, who are meeting in Belarus on Monday to bring Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine to an end. The talks began with the aim of an immediate ceasefire, but shelling in Kharkiv continued, according to Ukrainian officials.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is heading into a fifth day as troops continue to march closer to and enter the country’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, while elsewhere troops are moving closer to the capital.
“Control over Kharkiv is completely ours! The armed forces, the police, and the defence forces are working, and the city is being completely cleansed of the enemy,” regional governor Oleh Sinegubov wrote on Telegram, according to Reuters.
Kharkiv is home to 1.4 million people and is one of the closest major Ukrainian cities to the Russian border, sitting less than 50 kilometres away. The city was hit hard on Thursday with shelling, and residents have taken refuge in subway stations and bunkers.
A video of the recent attacks on Kharkiv, which Global News has been unable to confirm, has been shared online and purports to show the bombing in civilian areas.
“Kharkiv has been shelled with Grads again. Civilian areas targeted deliberately. Russia has gone full swing unleashing a total war of elimination in Ukraine,” wrote Illia Ponomarenko, a defence reporter with The Kyiv Independent.
— with files from Reuters and the Associated Press