Over 2,000 Ukraine civilians killed in Russian invasion

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has killed more than 2,000 Ukrainian civilians and destroyed hundreds of structures including transport facilities, hospitals, kindergartens and homes, Ukraine’s emergency service has said.

“Children, women and defence forces are losing their lives every hour,” it said in a statement.

It comes as four more people were killed and nine wounded this morning as a barrage of Russian air and rocket strikes pounded the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, the local emergency services and Mayor Ihor Terekhov said.

“Kharkiv is a Russian-speaking city. Every fourth person in Kharkiv has relatives in the Russian Federation. But the city’s attitude to Russia today is completely different to what it ever was before,” he said in an online video statement.

“We never expected this could happen: total destruction, annihilation, genocide against the Ukrainian people – this is unforgivable.”

Kharkiv has a population of around 1.4 million.

It has been a target for Russian forces since President Vladimir Putin launched an invasion of Ukraine last Thursday and which intensified yesterday.

According to Anton Gerashchenko, adviser to the Ukrainian Interior Minister, a fire broke out this morning in the barracks of a flight school in the city following an airstrike.

“Practically there are no areas left in Kharkiv where an artillery shell has not yet hit,” he was quoted as saying in a statement on Telegram.

The Russian army also claimed it had taken control of the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson.

“The Russian divisions of the armed forces have taken the regional centre of Kherson under full control,” defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said in televised remarks.