Ukraine’s second city of Kharkiv was pounded by Russian missiles yesterday, with a central hotel badly hit, injuring 11 people.
Two Russian rockets struck the building, Kharkiv’s governor said, with photos from Ukraine’s State Emergency Service later showing the hotel heavily damaged with firefighters at the scene.
Other pictures posted online showed many of the windows blown out and balconies destroyed with large piles of rubble in the street below.
Emergency teams made their way through gaping holes in the facade to sift through rubble inside.
Governor Oleh Synehubov said the injured included Turkish journalists after the two S-300 missiles exploded in the dead of night.
Psychiatrist Mykhailo Bebeshko, a hotel guest, said he had heard no air raid alert before the missile struck.
“I was in the bathroom and that was what saved me. I fell, hit my head and then lay on the floor,” he said.
“With a second explosion, all the doors were blown out and it was fortunate that I had been on the floor. And I shouted out to my colleagues: Everyone ok? Everyone still alive?”
Kharkiv, just 30km (19 miles) from the Russian border, has suffered extensive damage from Russian air strikes since President Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
In the latest strike, nine injured were taken to hospital, including a 35-year-old man in a serious condition, the governor said on the Telegram messaging service.
The city’s mayor, Ihor Terekhov, quoted by Ukraine’s Unian news agency, said “there were no military at all” in the hotel at the time, but 30 civilians were there. It is in the city’s central Kyiv district. He said several homes and cars nearby were also damaged.
Kharkiv Police Chief Volodymyr Tymoshko added: “One missile hit next to the hotel, right by a fence. The other one hit a nearby annex.”
The Russian city of Belgorod, 74km north of Kharkiv, was hit by Ukrainian missiles and drones on 30 December which Russian officials say killed 25 civilians.
Russia has started moving hundreds of Belgorod children to holiday camps further away from Ukraine for three-week stays. A camp in Voronezh region received 93 on Wednesday and later 280 arrived in Kaluga region, state TV reported, adding that teachers would join them there.
Russia has stepped up air strikes on Ukrainian cities in the past two weeks.
Ukrainian officials say dozens of civilians have died in the series of attacks, which have used drones and missiles.
