Exploding in a giant fireball, a cruise missile struck the imposing Soviet-era structure at 8.02am yesterday – engulfing local government offices and devastating a nearby opera house, concert hall and university buildings.
The horrifying attack – condemned by Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky as a ‘war crime’ – killed at least ten people and injured more than 20 as ceilings collapsed while all the windows were blown out on to the second-largest city square in Europe.
It left a large crater in this celebrated Kharkiv landmark – where just a few weeks ago, I watched children happily skating as I spoke to people in a cafe about the threat of war.
Amid the dust, the debris and the devastation lay the dead. Two bodies were side by side on the cobblestones near an abandoned car.
One was barefoot; the other, clad in military-style clothing, had a clenched fist.
This latest strike on Ukraine’s former capital, which is being battered by a terrifying bombardment from Russian forces that have poured over the border less than 30 miles away, was laden with the most grotesque symbolism.
For this city centre plaza, where the country’s biggest statue of Lenin once stood, was renamed Freedom Square 31 years ago when the nation shook off the shackles of Kremlin rule following the collapse of the Soviet empire.
Now the city’s 1.4million population are suffering daily atrocities inflicted by another dictatorial regime in Moscow as Russia ratchets up an assault that yesterday also saw a hospital, school and residential areas shelled.
‘This is the price of freedom,’ said Zelensky. ‘This is terror against Ukraine. There were no military targets in the square – nor are they in those residential districts of Kharkiv which come under rocket artillery fire.’
A monitor showing a projectile striking the regional state administration building on Tuesday
The subsequent explosion as Kharkiv, Ukraine’s former capital, faced a sixth day of bombardment from Russia
The Russian-speaking city in north-eastern Ukraine has suffered six days of bombardment with a terrifying hail of missiles and shells raining down on the civilian infrastructure.
After Russian special forces, backed by armoured vehicles, were repelled from an attempt to capture the city on Sunday, there are fears their infuriated commanders have resorted to using cluster bombs on residential buildings to spread panic.
‘It looks like a horror movie,’ said Dmytro Kuzubov, 33, a website editor.
‘The Russian occupiers are destroying my hometown, killing civilians. They bring destruction, misery and pain. People hiding in basements and subways have almost forgotten what the sky looks like.’
Remarkably, a tent encampment on the central square filled with volunteers collecting aid for the fighters who have come to Kharkiv’s defence emerged from the attack unscathed.
‘There were ten people in the tent just a couple of metres from the spot where the missile hit the square. It’s a pure miracle they survived,’ said Marina Polyakova, who runs the charity.
‘All the guys who were there not only survived but were uninjured.’
Olena Znatkova, a single mother living near to the wrecked government office, said she heard the sound of the rocket flying overhead followed by the explosion.
‘It was very loud. It is horrible what is happening here,’ she said.
Olena, who works for the government and fled her home in Luhansk eight years ago with her daughter after Vladimir Putin stirred up separatist insurgencies, said supplies were running out fast in the city.
‘People are hiding in basements so we can’t just go out to the store when there are constant shellings. Students are sitting, trapped, in the dormitories without food and water and medical supplies.’
The intensity of the attack on Kharkiv demolishes Putin’s pretence that he is trying to save his brother nation.
‘This is not a military operation, but a war that is meant to kill the Ukrainian people,’ said Ihor Terekhov, Kharkiv’s mayor.
A view of the square outside the damaged local city hall of Kharkiv after the central square of Ukraine’s second city was shelled by advancing Russian forces
One attack earlier this week killed two parents with their three children after they were burned alive in their car.
Another assault slaughtered a family of four who had left their homes in search of water, said the city mayor.
‘Kharkiv never experienced such devastating destruction in its modern history – this is horrible,’ he said.
The emergency services put out at least 24 fires in and around the city caused by shelling yesterday – including at a hospital in the New Bavaria district named after German migrants who moved there in the 19th century.
There were eight deaths and eight injuries in the area, amid claims that one Russian aircraft was shot down during the attacks on Kharkiv that left 25 confirmed dead yesterday. City authorities said more than 87 residential buildings were hit.
‘We had a lot of people wounded in the streets. The wounds were so bad you would not even see that kind in horror movies,’ said a medic.
A video shared on social media showed a stunned man in front of a damaged school and kindergarten opposite his flat, which had their windows shattered by a shell that landed between the buildings.
Other footage from the New Bavaria district showed several burning homes.
‘The shellings are more intense every day,’ said Maksym Bilyk, 26, whom I had met just weeks ago in a cafe by the square.
A computer expert, he is now spending much of his time in the shelters engaged in his nation’s anti-Russia cyber-warfare efforts.
Russia’s defence minister Sergei Shoigu, one of Putin’s closest allies, has denied targeting civilians and said his military forces ‘take all measures’ to spare lives – despite abundant evidence of attacks on residential buildings, kindergartens, schools and hospitals.
Ukrainian volunteers carry a victim out of the City Hall building following shelling on Tuesday
In 2014, when Russia previously invaded Ukraine, there was an attempt by pro-Moscow rebels to take over Kharkiv in similar style to what they achieved in Donetsk and Luhansk, by occupying city government buildings.
But it failed after the insurgents were repulsed by forces loyal to Kyiv.
Speaking about those who had been pro-Moscow, Nataliya Zubar, a human rights activist in Kharkiv, said: ‘They have now seen anger and hatred towards the country rise as if from hell.’
Her family has lived in Kharkiv for six generations and she says the city will survive. ‘They can destroy the buildings.
But Kharkiv survived the Second World War; it has survived the great famine; it has survived Stalin’s repression. It will survive in memory even it is destroyed in full now.’
One of those who escaped the city early in the Russian assault was Ekaterina Pereverzeva, 27. It took her four days travelling to the other side of Ukraine in search of safety.
But she still finds it impossible to escape the trauma, saying: ‘I looked at the map of the shellings and I just lost it.
‘There is at least one person I know living on each street that was shelled and I don’t know if they are dead or alive.’
As darkness fell last night, the sky was lit up by another constant barrage of brutal explosions across the city.
