The seventh day of the war in Ukraine began with bombings overnight on Wednesday (2) in Kharkiv, the country’s second largest city, which left dead and wounded, according to local media, without providing further details.
In the morning (dawn in Brazil), Russian troops attacked the police headquarters. According to the Pravda newspaper, the deputy head of the Kharkiv Regional State Administration, Roman Semenukha, says that the building of the Regional Department of Internal Affairs and a neighboring building, where there is a house, were also hit. A fire breaks out at the site.
In addition to the Police Department, the building of the Faculty of Sociology at Karazin National University is also on fire, Interior Ministry adviser Anton Gerashchenko reported in a Telegram message.
Earlier, the Ukrainian army had reported that Russian airborne troops had arrived in Kharkiv and attacked a hospital, and that fighting was ongoing. “There are practically no areas in Kharkiv left that have not been hit by artillery shells,” Gerashchenko said.
On Tuesday, the city had already been targeted by Moscow, whose missiles hit residential areas and the local administration building. So far, 21 have been confirmed dead and 112 injured.
In the south, the Russian army claimed the capture of Kherson, a port city of 290,000 that was besieged on Tuesday. At the beginning of the invasion, on Saturday (26), troops from Vladimir Putin’s government even destroyed a concrete dam built in the region to cut off the water supply to Crimea.
Ukraine had blocked fresh water supplies to the peninsula, through a Soviet-era system that piped water from the Dnieper River, before Moscow annexed the region.
This Wednesday, Mayor Igor Kolikhaiev even announced that the city, the target of intense bombing in recent hours, remained under Ukrainian control. Later, however, Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov reported that Russian troops had taken full control of the Kherson regional center.
In the capital Kiev, after a destructive day, the Ukrainian press reported further explosions during the night and in Bila Tserkva, about 80 km to the south. Intense bombings were also recorded in Mariupol, a city by the sea of ​​Azov.
Faced with the Russian offensive, President Volodymyr Zelensky says that Moscow wants to erase the country. “They don’t know anything about Kiev, about our history,” he said in a televised address. “But they all have orders to erase our history, erase our country, erase us all.”
According to the president, in the first six days, about 6,000 Russians were killed – a number that is difficult to verify, while Moscow does not give details about casualties.
Zelensky also said that the Kremlin would not take over his country with bombs and air strikes. In reference to the action against Babi Iar – a memorial in honor of Jews killed by the Nazis in World War II – the president said that “it proves that for many people in Russia our Kiev is absolutely foreign”.
The expectation this Wednesday revolves around a possible second round of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine. The meeting was reported by the Ukrainian media and also announced by the Russian news agency Tass – which credited the information to newspapers in the neighboring country. The meeting, however, has not yet been confirmed by the diplomats of both countries.
