The eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv has come under Russian drone attack for around two hours with eyewitnesses reporting around 20 explosions across the city.
According to the city’s mayor, Ihor Terekhov, fires broke out in four districts with one of the largest at the Barabashovo market, the fourth time since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion it has caught fire.
Officials say 90 shops at the market were destroyed.
In the western part of the city, multi-storey residential building was damaged, with one of the residents saying the drone strikes happened in several waves.
“Around 4:20 am, the first explosion happened and then they just kept coming one after another. After the tenth one, we stopped counting,” Nataliia Mishukova said.
“My front door was blown off, as well as the balcony and window. My car is damaged too.”
Four drones also struck a hotel and restaurant complex in the north of the city with the head of the regional military administration, Oleh Syniehubov, saying four people suffered from acute stress as a result.
Attacks on Sumy
Meanwhile, residents of Bilopillia in the nearby Sumy region began evacuating earlier on Tuesday amid intensified Russian attacks.
Local authorities, including Mayor Yurii Zarko, reported that the security situation in the city has worsened in recent days, prompting renewed calls for evacuation.
“Even those who didn’t want to leave earlier, or who left and then returned – those who still have a place to return to – they see that the situation is getting worse, so they’re evacuating again,” Zarko said.
“Most people who have their own transport have already left on their own. But for those who don’t have a way to leave – especially now with the bridges destroyed and no public transport – they’re relying entirely on the current situation. And since the situation keeps getting worse, people are making the decision to leave in order to stay safe.”
Many residents, including the elderly and those with limited mobility, left with the help of emergency services and Ukrainian Red Cross teams.
Volodymyr Moskalenko, commander of the rapid response unit for the Ukrainian Red Cross, said two ambulances were being used to move people with limited mobility.
“We’ll load them up, and they’ll head directly to Sumy. The more off-road capable vehicle will go where the roads are really bad, where access is difficult – we’ll be picking up people from there as well,” he said.
Mandatory evacuation for children
More than 30 children have been evacuated from the village of Shakhove in the Donetsk region over the past three days, according to local military administration head Serhiy Sazhko.
On 2 May, authorities announced mandatory evacuation for families with minors in both Shakhove and Toretske due to ongoing Russian shelling.
“We’ve already had a mandatory evacuation of two administrative districts, but at that time the security situation was much better. Now people see the situation for themselves,” Sazhko explained.
“There were 54 children in Shakhove; as of now, 23 remain. I think in two or three days we will have evacuated all the children from here. There are 22 children in Toretske, which is a bit farther. We need to evacuate all children from Shakhove first, and then we’ll move on to evacuating Toretske.”
Families are being transported to safety in Voloshyne in the Zhytomyr region where they will be hosted by volunteers.
