At least 21 people have been killed and 112 wounded in a shelling in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv in the last 24 hours, the regional governor Oleg Synegubov has said.
The authorities have said Russian missile attacks hit the centre of Ukraine's second-largest city, including residential areas and the regional administration building.
Russian forces escalated their attacks on crowded urban areas in what Ukraine’s leader called a blatant campaign of terror.
VYACHESLAV MADIYEVSKYY
“Nobody will forgive. Nobody will forget,” Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky vowed after the bloodshed on the central square in Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city, and the deadly bombing of a TV tower in the capital.
A 40-mile convoy of hundreds of Russian tanks and other vehicles advanced slowly on Kyiv, the capital city of nearly three million people.
The invading forces also pressed their assault on other towns and cities, including the strategic ports of Odesa and Mariupol in the south.
Day six of the biggest ground war in Europe since World War II found Russia increasingly isolated, beset by the sanctions that have thrown its economy into turmoil and left the country practically friendless, apart from a few nations like China, Belarus and North Korea.
As the fighting in Ukraine raged, the death toll remained unclear. One senior Western intelligence official estimated that more than 5,000 Russian soldiers had been captured or killed. Ukraine gave no overall estimate of troop losses.
The UN human rights office said it has recorded 136 civilian deaths. The real toll is believed to be far higher.
VYACHESLAV MADIYEVSKYY
The UK Ministry of Defence said it had seen an increase in Russian air and artillery strikes on populated urban areas over the past two days. It also said three cities — Kharkiv, Kherson and Mariupol — were encircled by Russian forces.
Many military experts worry that Russia may be shifting tactics. Moscow’s strategy in Chechnya and Syria was to use artillery and air bombardments to pulverize cities and crush fighters’ resolve.
Boris Johnson will update MPs today on his talks with allies in eastern Europe as the UK piled more pressure on Russia over its Ukraine invasion.
It comes as US President Joe Biden used his first State of the Union address to announce US airspace was closed to Russian flights, adding his administration would be joining the UK and other allies in pursuing the Russian oligarchs and “corrupt leaders who built billions of dollars off (Vladimir Putin’s) violent regime”.
