Russia-Ukraine War News LIVE Updates: PM Modi Speaks to Family of Indian Student Killed in Kharkiv Shelling
Russia-Ukraine War News LIVE Updates: The central square of Ukraine’s second city, Kharkiv, was shelled on Tuesday by advancing Russian forces who hit the building of the local administration, regional governor Oleg Sinegubov said. “This morning the central square of our city and the headquarters of the Kharkiv administration was criminally attacked,” Sinegubov said in a video on Telegram.
Russian occupiers continue to use heavy weaponry against the civilian population,” he said, adding that the number of victims was not yet known. He posted footage of the massive blast and debris inside the building.
Kharkiv, a largely Russian-speaking city near the Russian border, has a population of around 1.4 million. It has been a target for Russian forces since President Vladimir Putin launched an invasion of Ukraine last Thursday.
Separately, an official in the region of Sumy, which lies north of Kharkiv close to Russia’s border, said early on Monday that some 70 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed in Russian shelling on a military facility in the area. “Many died. Currently, places are being prepared in the cemetery for about 70 dead Ukrainian soldiers,” Dmytro Zhyvytsky, the head of the Sumy region, wrote on Telegram after strikes on the town of Okhtyrka.
He posted images of charred buildings with caved-in walls and rescue workers digging through rubble. The Ukrainian military, however, has not confirmed the deaths. Russia has denied targeting civilian areas despite rockets landing in residential neighbourhoods. Ukraine says more than 350 civilians have been killed since Moscow launched the attack last week.
Satellite images taken on Monday show a Russian military convoy north of the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv that stretches for about 40 miles (64 km), substantially longer than the 17 miles (27 km) reported earlier in the day, a U.S. private company said, according to a Reuters report. Maxar Technologies also said additional ground forces deployments and ground attack helicopter units were seen in southern Belarus, less than 20 miles (32 km) north of the Ukraine border.
On Monday, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova expressed confidence that NATO’s and the Western public’s silence on the situation in Donbass had resulted in a humanitarian and political disaster in Europe.
“NATO’s experiments and the deafening silence of the Western public – these are the reasons behind the humanitarian and political disaster in Europe. An end was to be put to this, since the West refused to conduct any negotiations whatsoever and welcomed aggressive statements and direct threats of Kiev puppets towards Russia,” the diplomat wrote on her Telegram channel, according to a report by RT.
Russia did not start a war; it is ending it, according to Zakharova. “Throughout these years, the Russian side has urged the international community to oppose the ongoing annihilation of the Donbass population. These are millions of people who were losing loved ones every day and were living in basements to escape the shelling,” she added.
