Russia has announced that its forces have taken control of the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, as Moscow’s large-scale military operation against its neighbor enters its seventh day.
A Russian Defense Ministry spokesperson said on Wednesday that Russian forces had taken control of Kherson on the Black Sea, Reuters reported. Kherson, a city of nearly a quarter million people just north of Crimea, is the biggest city to fall to Russian forces so far.
City Mayor Igor Kolykhayev was quoted by local media on Tuesday as saying that Russian forces had taken control of the railway station and the port overnight and that the occupation of Kherson was underway.
Russian airborne troops land in Ukraine’s Kharkiv
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s army says Russian paratroopers have landed in the country’s second-largest city of Kharkiv, triggering immediate clashes in the streets.
“Russian airborne troops landed in Kharkiv… and attacked a local hospital,” the army said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app on Wednesday, adding that there was heavy fighting going on between Ukrainian armed forces and the Russian forces.
Anton Gerashchenko, adviser to the Ukrainian interior minister, said a fire had broken out in the barracks of a flight school in the northeastern city following an air raid. “Practically there are no areas left in Kharkiv where an artillery shell has not yet hit,” he said in a statement posted on Telegram.
The city’s governor, Oleg Synegubov, also said on Telegram that seven people were killed in an attack on a government building and that 24 people were wounded.
Kharkiv, a largely Russian-speaking city near the Russian border, has a population of around 1.4 million. It has been a target of Russian forces since President Vladimir Putin announced a military offensive in Ukrainian territory last Thursday.
On Tuesday, local media reports said that Russian airstrikes had hit a residential block in the city, killing eight people.
Russia has denied targeting civilian infrastructure since the start of its military offensive in Ukraine, saying it is only targeting the country’s military infrastructure, air defenses, and air forces with high-precision weapons.
In Mariupol, a port on the Sea of Azov, more than a hundred people were injured on Tuesday in Russian fire, the mayor of the city, Vadym Boychenko was quoted as saying by Ukrainian media.
In Borodyanka, 50 kilometers from Kiev, Russian airstrikes destroyed two residential buildings on Tuesday, according to Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Emine Dzhaparova, who shared a video of the grey buildings partially in ruins, with apartments in flames.
