Explosions erupted around Kyiv’s 1,300ft TV tower Tuesday afternoon, just hours after Russia told civilians to evacuate because it was about to begin bombarding ‘strategic’ targets in the Ukrainian capital.
At least two large blasts were seen near the foot of the tower, around three miles from central Kyiv, around 5.30 pm local time. It was not immediately clear whether the tower had been the target of the strikes, or whether they had been targeting nearby buildings. The tower remained standing, but several state broadcasts went off air.
It came shortly after Moscow’s ministry of defence said it would be launching strikes into the city targeting Ukraine’s security service and intelligence agencies with what it called ‘precision munitions’.
That raised fears that Kyiv was about to come under heavy bombardment after the cities of Kharkiv, Mariupol and Kherson were hit by indiscriminate shelling earlier in the day.
A column of Russian artillery units and tanks 40 miles long has been pictured snaking its way towards Kyiv as analysts warned it will likely be tasked with surrounding the city, besieging it and bombing it into submission as Putin resorts to ‘medieval’ tactics in an attempt to force victory.
Meanwhile Ukraine warned that Belarus had also thrown its own soldiers into the fight with an attack on the north eastern city of Chernihiv.
Day 6 of the biggest ground war in Europe since World War II has found Russia increasingly isolated by tough economic sanctions that have thrown its economy into disarray and left the country practically friendless, apart from China and Belarus.
In Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-biggest city, with a population of about 1.5 million, at least six people were killed when the region’s Soviet-era administrative building was hit. Explosions tore through residential areas, and a maternity ward was moved to an underground shelter.
Kharkiv’s Freedom Square – Ukraine’s largest plaza, and the nucleus of public life for the city – was struck with what was believed to be a missile, in an attack seen by many Ukrainians as brazen evidence that the Russian invasion wasn’t just about hitting military targets but also about breaking their spirits.
The strike blew out windows and walls of buildings that ring the massive central square, which was piled high with debris and dust. Inside one building, chunks of plaster were scattered, and doors, ripped from their hinges, lay across hallways.
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‘People are under the ruins. We have pulled out bodies,’ said Yevhen Vasylenko, representative of the Emergency Situations Ministry in Kharkiv region. In addition to the six killed, 20 were wounded in the strike, he said.
Zelenskyy called the attack on Kharkiv’s main square ‘frank, undisguised terror,’ blaming a Russian missile and calling it a war crime. ‘This is state terrorism of the Russian Federation,’ he said.
In an emotional appeal to the European Parliament later, Zelenskyy said: ‘We are fighting also to be equal members of Europe. I believe that today we are showing everybody that is what we are.’
He said 16 children had been killed on Monday, and he mocked Russia’s claim that it is going after only military targets.
‘Where are the children, what kind of military factories do they work at? What tanks are they going at, launching cruise missiles?’ Zelenskyy said.
In a worrying development, Human Rights Watch said it documented a cluster bomb attack outside a hospital in Ukraine’s east in recent days. Local residents have also reported the use of the munitions in Kharkiv and the village of Kiyanka, though there was no independent confirmation.
If confirmed, that would represent a worrying new level of brutality in the war and could lead to even further isolation in Russia.
The Kremlin denied Tuesday that it has used such weapons and insisted again that its forces only have struck military targets – despite evidence documented by Associated Press reporters of shelling of homes, schools and hospitals.
The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor said earlier this week that he plans to open an investigation into possible war crimes.
Unbowed by Western condemnation, Russian officials upped their threats of escalation, days after raising the specter of a nuclear attack. A top Kremlin official warned that the West’s ‘economic war’ against Russia could turn into a ‘real one.’
The first talks Monday between Ukraine and Russia yielded no stop in the fighting, though the two sides agreed to another meeting in the coming days.
Throughout the country, many Ukrainian civilians spent another night huddled in shelters, basements or corridors. More than a half-million people have fled the country, and the U.N. human rights office said it has recorded the deaths of 136 civilians. The real toll is believed to be far higher.
