Ukraine’s second biggest city, Kharkiv, has been battered by Russian attacks.
More than 20 people were injured, including a child, in an explosion at a government building in the city, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said in a Telegram post Tuesday.
The blast destroyed the building, according to videos of the incident posted by the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) and Ukrainian government officials. The clips were posted on social media early Tuesday local time and have been verified by CNN.
Residential and administrative areas in Kharkiv were bombarded on Monday night and Tuesday morning.
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Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova described the situation in Kharkiv as “hellish” and shared a video on Facebook of a missile that hit a kitchen window and tore off the leg of a woman, who she said later died in hospital.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of war crimes over the attacks. He said that in five days, 56 missile strikes and 113 cruise missiles were launched in Ukraine by Russian forces. On Monday, he said Russian forces “brutally fired on Kharkiv from jet artillery. It was clearly a war crime.”
On Monday, the International Criminal Court said it would open an investigation into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Russia maintains that it isn’t targeting civilian infrastructure in Ukraine, and that there is no evidence of civilian deaths caused by the Russia military.
At least 10 people were killed and 35 injured in rocket strikes by Russian forces on the center of Kharkiv Tuesday, according to Ukraine’s Interior Ministry adviser Anton Herashchenko. “Freedom Square was hit by a cruise missile. There was a second hit by a similar rocket that hit the building after the rescuers arrived (in 5-7 minutes). One third of the administration building fell,” Herashchenko said in a post on Telegram.