T Online Desk: Ukraine’s military said Wednesday that Russian paratroopers have landed in Kharkiv in an effort to take the besieged city.
Earlier, Ukrainian interior ministry advisor Vadym Denysenko said on television on Tuesday that Russian forces had entered the southern city of Kherson.
The city’s mayor, Igor Kolykhayev, had told local radio that Russian forces had captured the city’s railway station and port on Tuesday night, according to BBC Russian.
“The fighting is going on now, and the occupation of our city is underway.”
He said many people had died including Ukrainian soldiers and civilians, and government officials were now trying to make sure people could leave or get to shelters.
Airstrikes in several cities across Ukraine have continued, including in Zhytomyr, where a strike killed several people and damaged homes, the Ukrainian interior ministry said.
Meanwhile, a column of Russian troops bearing down on the capital Kyiv remains stalled, Reuters reports.
The UN human rights office said on Tuesday that at least 136 civilians including 13 children had been killed since Russia invaded Ukraine last week.
FOUR DEAD IN ZHYTOMYR
Four people were killed when homes in the Ukrainian city of Zhytomyr were hit on Tuesday by a Russian cruise missile apparently aimed at a nearby air base, Anton Gerashchenko, adviser to the Ukrainian interior minister, said on his Telegram channel.
He said the residential buildings near the base of the 95th Airborne Brigade in Zhytomyr, 120 km west of the capital Kyiv, had been set on fire.
“So far, four people have died. Including a child,” he said.
Moscow warned residents of the capital Kyiv on Tuesday to flee their homes and rained rockets on Ukraine’s second city, Kharkiv, as Russian commanders intensified their bombardment of urban areas in a shift of tactics after their six-day assault stalled.
Ukrainian Health Minister Viktor Lyashko wrote on his Facebook page that Russian forces had killed a paediatric anaesthesiologist, firing at her car as she was driving her wounded nephew to the hospital from the village of Kukhari, in the Kyiv region.
Ukraine’s defence ministry said a total of 16 high-precision guided missiles had been fired on Monday at residential areas of Kharkiv from a strategic bomber flying over Russia’s Belgorod region.
“High-rise buildings, schools, kindergartens and other infrastructure of the city were destroyed,” the ministry said on its Facebook page.
“According to preliminary data, dozens of Kharkiv residents, including children, died from these airstrikes,” it added.
“Unfortunately, in the current situation, it is extremely difficult for the Air Force to cover the sky in this region, because part of the country’s air defence system was destroyed by Russian ballistic and cruise missile strikes.”
In the largely Russian-speaking city of Donetsk, in territory controlled by Russian-backed separatists, local authorities said three civilians had been killed by Ukrainian shelling.
The self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic, recognised as independent by Moscow last week, was one of the transit points used by Russian forces that invaded Ukraine on Feb 24.
Reuters was not able to confirm any of the incidents.
21 KILLED, 112 WOUNDED IN KHARKIV
At least 21 people were killed and 112 wounded in shelling in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv in the last 24 hours, regional governor Oleg Synegubov said on Wednesday.
The authorities have said Russian missile attacks hit the centre of Ukraine’s second-largest city, including residential areas and the regional administration building.
