Russian missiles and rockets have hit the cultural heart of Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, the region head, Oleg Synegubov, said on Tuesday.
According to Synegubov, Russia launched grad and cruise missiles on Kharkiv but said the city’s defence was holding.
“Such attacks are genocide of the Ukrainian people, a war crime against the civilian population,” he said in a video.
In Tuesday’s attack, an opera house, concert hall and government offices were hit in Freedom Square, in the centre of the north-eastern city Kharkiv, BBC reports.
At least 20 people including a child were injured, but authorities are still trying to clarify the death toll.
The attack came as Ukraine’s president said Russia was committing war crimes.
“This is the price of freedom,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said. “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,” he added.
