The apartment at 24 Liubovi Maloi avenue was an eerie ruin. Its roof and outer walls had disappeared. In one corner a row of suits hung in a wardrobe. There was a TV, a coffee cup, a maroon jacket on a peg. And a black and white photo album with old family snaps taken in communist times.
The flat’s inhabitants – Svitlana Vlasenko and her grown-up daughter Polina – were not coming back. The Russian missile that fell on their building on a Friday night killed them and six of their neighbours. Twenty-six people were injured, two of them children.
The street in Ukraine’s second city, Kharkiv, was not near any military objects. It was a quiet place of flowerbeds, communal benches and a sandy play area for children. Residents walked their dogs in a resin-scented pine forest, which was also hit in the strike on 31 May by five S-300 rockets.
Since Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Kharkiv has been under constant bombardment. Russian troops tried and failed to occupy the city. They retreated but were close enough to pound it with artillery. In September 2022, Ukrainian forces pushed the Russians back to the state border. On 10 May this year, the Kremlin staged a fresh incursion, seizing the town of Vovchansk and assaulting the hilltop village of Lyptsi.
At the same time, Moscow intensified its aerial attacks on Kharkiv, using drones and surface-to-air missiles. Taking the city remains a Russian objective. For now, Putin appears determined to break the resistance of its 1 million inhabitants by subjecting them to deadly and terrifying strikes. “They want to make Kharkiv a grey zone so we can’t work or live or have fun,” said Liliia Yakovleva, 27, an accountant.
Yakovleva lives across the square from where the attack took place. She said the first missile blew out her neighbour’s windows. The second, a few minutes later, plunged into number 24, a five-storey private block. “The explosion threw bodies on the ground. I saw one was on fire,” she said.
“For two years you think the war is near but it won’t take you. You live your life. Then you understand the war can come for you at any time.”
Rescue workers cleared the yard and removed most of the debris. They left behind a crushed VW Passat car. In the nearby forest, a missile had torn through pine trees and burned undergrowth. “People used to move here, to the west of the city, because it was out of shelling range. Now Kharkiv has no good areas. Everywhere is dangerous,” Yakovleva said. “The Russians want us to work for them. But we don’t want to be a part of their country.”
Kharkiv’s regional governor, Oleh Syniehubov, said the number of attacks had recently gone down after the Biden administration allowed Ukraine to use some US-supplied weapons against military targets in Russia. Previously the Russians had fired on Kharkiv from positions in the Belgorod region, just over the border. “They would shoot, hide and shoot again,” he said. “In the last few days there has been a cardinal improvement.”
Ukraine’s armed forces have used US Himars missiles to destroy at least one Russian S-300/S-400 launcher outside Belgorod. Syniehubov said further action had been taken against enemy logistics. “I can’t tell you more. It’s secret information,” he said. He acknowledged that Kharkiv did not have Patriot air defence systems, which would allow the city to down Russian combat planes carrying guided bombs. “They are still flying,” he said.
Last month Putin declared that he did not intend to capture Kharkiv and merely wished to create a “sanitary zone” to protect Belgorod. “Of course they want to occupy Kharkiv. They will advance until they are stopped,” Syniehubov said. The governor said he had sympathy with citizens who ignored frequent air raid sirens. “You can’t spend 10 or 11 hours a day in a shelter,” he said, noting that the situation had “stabilised”.
The reduction in attacks came too late for Ruslan Burdov, the 53-year-old owner of a lakeside resort in the village of Cherkaska Lozova, close to Kharkiv. On 19 May, a Sunday, at 11am, guests were relaxing on the reed-fringed site. The Russians hit it out of the blue with an Iskander missile. The blast ripped through the terrace and a row of wooden summer houses. Nearby were pedal boats, a sauna and an empty swimming pool.
Six people died. One was a pregnant woman. Burdov said his son Artur, 21, called him about the attack and ran to help the injured. Twenty minutes later a second Iskander missile landed metres away from the first. It was a classic double tap – designed to hurt rescue workers who arrived to give assistance. The second blast ripped off two of Artur’s fingers and tore off a part of his leg. His fiance, Sonia, was also hurt.
Burdov said he was bewildered as to why Moscow would target his resort. “I support the Ukrainian army. But we have no soldiers here,” he said. “I’m very sorry people died. I’m sorry about my guests.” Asked what he would do now, he said: “I have no plan. I put my soul into this place. It was 16 years of work. If I didn’t have my son I would think about topping myself.” Before 2014 – and Putin’s annexation of Crimea – many of his visitors had been Russians, he said.
The following weekend, on 25 May, Russia sent another missile into a large and crowded DIY store. About 200 shoppers were inside the Epicentr K hypermarket when the strike – the deadliest in weeks – landed at 4.01pm. Security camera footage captured two thunderous explosions. The building was engulfed in thick smoke and flames. Sixteen people died and more than 40 were injured.
Last week the complex resembled a ghoulish wreck. Rescuers had piled debris into large tangled heaps. A magpie hopped among abandoned mini fir trees in the garden section. Out in the car park was a shrine with cuddly toys and candles. It included a framed photograph stuck to a lamp-post of 12-year-old Maria Myronenko with her mother, Iryna. Both had died. The girl’s father had survived.
“There’s no place where they don’t bomb us,” said Herman Shevchenko, a security guard, gazing at the gutted shell of his former workplace. “In 2022 they kept hitting us with Grads [missiles]. We don’t have F-16 planes. If we did maybe this would stop.” The Epicentr branch is in Saltivka, a northern district of the city that in 2022 was shelled relentlessly. Many residents spent months living underground in its metro station.
Just over three hours after the Epicentr strike, Moscow hit a downtown office building. The apparent target was a branch of Nova Poshta, a Ukrainian postal and courier delivery company. Vladimir Alisultanov, 22, a barista, was in the Sweeter cafe, 100 metres away. “We threw ourselves to the ground. I didn’t see the rocket. There was a red flash,” he said. He was shaken but unhurt. “I saw a girl walk out of a barber’s shop covered in blood,” he said.
Alisultanov, a refugee from the Russian-occupied southern port city of Berdiansk, showed a video he had recorded immediately after the attack. It showed a chaotic scene of dust and rubble. “We were fucking hit here near our work. Phew, it’s good that I’m alive! There, fucking destroyed,” he said. One of his customers had narrowly avoided being killed. After the impact she ran inside the cafe. Seconds later a piece of concrete smashed into her pavement table, cleaving her chair.
One of the grimmest episodes took place the same week at Factor Druk, Ukraine’s biggest printing house. On 23 May, Russia hit the complex with four S-300 missiles. Seven workers assembling books were killed. Five were so badly burned they could be identified only by DNA tests. More than 50,000 books were destroyed. “The Russians are wiping out our history and culture,” said the plant’s general director, Tetiana Hryniuk.
Statistics from the Kharkiv mayor’s office paint a grim picture. In May alone there were 76 incidents of strikes and shelling, almost three times more than in April. It included 37 strikes from airdropped glide bombs, 25 by rockets, 12 from Shahed-type kamikaze drones and three by Lancet-type loitering munitions. The air raid siren went off 193 times and sounded for a cumulative 474 hours and 55 minutes.
According to official data and local media reports, the death toll between 10 May and 10 June was 40 people. Another 186 were wounded. Syniehubov said the direct strike on the private house in Liubovi Maloi avenue was outrageous. “There are only civilians there. We had to identify several victims using DNA tests,” he said.
Despite the attacks, he said he was optimistic about Kharkiv’s future. “We will have victory. You can see for yourself we are still here,” he said.