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Four more people were killed and nine wounded as a barrage of Russian air and rocket strikes pounded the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Wednesday morning, the local emergency services and Mayor Ihor Terekhov said.
“Kharkiv is a Russian-speaking city. Every fourth person in Kharkiv has relatives in the Russian Federation. But the city’s attitude to Russia today is completely different to what it ever was before,” he said in an online video statement.
“We never expected this could happen: total destruction, annihilation, genocide against the Ukrainian people – this is unforgivable.”
Authorities said 21 people were killed by shelling and air strikes in the city in the past 24 hours, and four more on Wednesday morning.
A second round of talks between Russia and Ukraine will take place on Wednesday, Russia’s TASS news agency cited an adviser to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy as saying. TASS said the adviser, Oleksiy Arestovych, was speaking on Ukraine-24 TV.
Russia said it had taken Kherson, the biggest city it has yet seized in Ukraine on Wednesday, while stepping up its lethal bombardment of the main cities that its invasion force has so far failed to capture in the face of strong Ukrainian resistance.
However, Mr Arestovych said on Wednesday Russia had not captured Kherson and that there was street fighting going on in the southern port, which sits at the Dniepr river’s exit into the Black Sea.
More than half a million Ukrainians have fled the fighting since Russian president Vladimir Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of his southern neighbour nearly a week ago.
Russian forces have escalated their attacks on crowded urban areas in what Ukraine’s leader called a blatant campaign of terror.
“Nobody will forgive. Nobody will forget,” Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy vowed after the bloodshed on the central square in Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city, and the deadly bombing of a TV tower in the capital.
Ukraine’s defence ministry said Kharkiv was shelled overnight, hitting buildings including the headquarters of the police and the state security service.
“While he may make gains on the battlefield, he will pay a continuing high price over the long run,” US president Joe Biden said during his state of the union address. Straying from the prepared text, Mr Biden added: “He has no idea what’s coming.” He did not elaborate.
The invaders’ advances have been met with fierce resistance by Ukrainian forces and a miles-long Russian military convoy north of Kyiv has made little progress towards the capital.

Firefighters extinguishing a fire in the Kharkiv regional police department building, which is said was hit by recent shelling, in Kharkiv on March 2nd, 2022. Photograph: Ukraine Emergency Ministry press service/AFP via Getty Images


Address
In a video address on Wednesday, Mr Zelenskiy said nearly 6,000 Russians had been killed in the first six days of Moscow’s invasion, and that the Kremlin would not be able to take his country with bombs and air strikes.
Mr Biden further ratcheted up sanctions on Moscow, joining the European Union and Canada in banning Russian planes from US airspace.
He also said the US justice department would seek to seize the yachts, luxury apartments and private jets of wealthy Russians with ties to Putin.
Russian forces have taken control of Kherson, a city of nearly a quarter million people just north of Crimea, the peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014, a Russian defence ministry spokesperson said. Strategically located on the Dniepr river, the provincial capital was the biggest city to fall to Russian forces so far.
The southeast city of Mariupol had been under intense shelling since late Tuesday and was unable to evacuate wounded, according to its mayor.
A senior US defence official said on Tuesday the invading force’s advance on Kyiv has stalled due to logistics problems, including shortages of food and fuel, and some units appeared to have low morale.
On Tuesday, Ukraine’s leader called on Russia to stop bombarding civilians and resume talks.
“It’s necessary to at least stop bombing people, just stop the bombing and then sit down at the negotiating table,” Mr Zelenskiy told Reuters and CNN in a joint interview in a heavily guarded government compound in Kyiv.
More than 450,000 people have fled Ukraine to Poland, and a further 113,000 to Romania.
Reprimand
The United Nations General Assembly is set to reprimand Russia on Wednesday and demand that Moscow stop fighting and withdraw its military forces.
Mr Putin ordered the “special military operation” last Thursday in a bid to disarm Ukraine, capture the “neo-Nazis” he says are running the democratic country of 44 million people and crush its hopes of closer ties to the West.
West of Kyiv, in the city of Zhytomyr, four people, including a child, were killed on Tuesday by a Russian cruise missile, a Ukrainian official said.
In Ukraine’s largely Russian-speaking city of Donetsk, in territory controlled by Russian-backed separatists, authorities said three civilians had been killed by Ukrainian shelling.
Reuters was unable to confirm any of the reports of casualties.
Vastly outmatched by Russia’s military, in terms of raw numbers and firepower, Ukraine’s own air force is still flying and its air defences are still deemed to be viable.
Ukraine, which is not a member of Nato, has called on the US-led military alliance to implement a no-fly zone over Ukraine – a request rejected by Washington, which fears stoking a direct conflict between the world’s two biggest nuclear powers.
Washington and its allies have instead sent weapons to Kyiv.
Ukrainian defence minister Oleksii Reznikov said on Wednesday the country was set to receive Stinger and Javelin missiles from abroad, as well as another shipment of Turkish drones.
Several dozen Japanese men have answered a Ukrainian call for foreign volunteers to fight Russia’s invasion, according to a media report on Wednesday. In Taiwan, the president, vice-president and prime minister all pledged to donate their salaries to Ukraine relief efforts.
Isolating Russia diplomatically, the West’s main strategy is shutting off Russia’s economy from the global financial system, pushing international companies to halt sales, cut ties, and dump tens of billions of dollars’ worth of investments.
Exxon Mobil joined other major Western energy companies including British BP PLC and Shell in announcing it would quit oil-rich Russia over the invasion.
Apple Inc stopped sales of iPhones and other products in Russia, and was making changes to its Maps app to protect civilians in Ukraine. Alphabet Inc’s Google dropped Russian state publishers from its news, and Ford Motor suspended operations in the country.
US airplane manufacturer Boeing said it was suspending parts, maintenance and technical support for Russian airlines.
Russia on Tuesday placed temporary restrictions on foreigners seeking to exit Russia assets, meaning that billions of dollars worth of securities held by foreigners are at risk of being trapped.
Defying the US-led economic campaign against Russia, Mexico’s leftist president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Mexico will not impose sanctions.
Talks
The first talks between Russia and Ukraine since the invasion were held on Monday, but ended with only an agreement to talk again. On Tuesday, Mr Zelenskiy said Russia should stop bombing first.
“As for dialogue, I think yes, but stop bombarding people first and start negotiating afterwards,” he told CNN.
Inside Russia, a top radio station critical of the Kremlin was taken off the air after authorities threatened to shut it down over its coverage of the invasion. Among other things, the Kremlin is not allowing the fighting to be referred to as an “invasion” or “war”.
“It is a nightmare, and it seizes you from the inside very strongly. This cannot be explained with words,” said Kharkiv resident Ekaterina Babenko, taking shelter in a basement with neighbours for a fifth straight day. “We have small children, elderly people, and frankly speaking it is very frightening.”
Ukraine’s defence ministry also said on Tuesday it has evidence that Belarus, a Russian ally, is preparing to send troops into Ukraine, while oil prices surged more than 5 dollars (€4.51) per barrel after a release of supplies failed to calm markets.
In the US, president Biden in his first state of the union address that the US was closing airspace to Russian planes and vowed to seize the yachts and apartments of Russian oligarchs. – AP/Reuters