Russian Forces Rocket To Kharkiv: 15 Killed, Including Grandmother Of World War II Survivor

Illustration of the impact of the Russian bombing on Ukraine. (Wikimedia Commons/State Emergency Service of Ukraine)

JAKARTA - Russian troops pounded Ukraine's second-largest city, Kharkiv and its surrounding countryside, leaving 15 people dead and dozens injured in attacks throughout Tuesday and Wednesday.

Russia's offensive in Kharkiv throughout yesterday and continued this morning, was the worst in weeks in an area where normal life has returned, since Ukraine pushed Russian troops back in a major counter-offensive last month.

“It was a shooting by Russian troops. It might be some rocket launcher. And it was a missile impact, it was all a missile impact," Kharkiv Prosecutor Mikhailo Martosh told Reuters amid the rubble of a hut that was attacked on Tuesday in a rural area on the outskirts of the city.

One of the victims of the attack was a woman. Medical workers carried the elderly body out of the rubble of the burning garage into a nearby van.

"He is 85 years old. A child of war (World War Two). He survived one war, but didn't make it through this one," said his granddaughter Mykyta.

"There is nowhere to run. Especially grandmother herself, she doesn't want to go anywhere from here," he said.

Ukrainian authorities said 15 people were killed and 16 injured Tuesday in attacks in the Kharkiv region, with more casualties reported from overnight and early Wednesday attacks.

"Russian troops are now attacking the city of Kharkiv in the same way as before they attacked Mariupol, with the aim of terrorizing the population," Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said in a video speech.

"And if they keep doing that, we have to react, that's one way to get us to move our artillery," he said.

"The idea is to create one big problem to distract us and force us to divert troops. I think there will be an escalation."

Kharkiv suffered punishment from Russian shelling during the first three months of the war, but has largely been spared since the Ukrainian counter-offensive more than a month ago.

The main battlefield is now in the south in the Donbas region, which Moscow is trying to capture on behalf of its separatist proxies. Ukrainian forces in the Donbas have largely resisted Russian attacks so far, with Moscow only making slow progress despite deploying tremendous artillery in some of Europe's toughest ground fighting since World War Two.