Russian missiles slammed into a multi-storey apartment building in the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Friday, killing at least two people and wounding about 25 others, Ukrainian officials said, as Moscow denied that its forces carried out the attack.
Photographs and videos circulating online showed thick smoke billowing from a heavily damaged residential block, with rescue workers combing through shattered concrete and twisted debris. Emergency crews were seen climbing over rubble as they searched for survivors.
Kharkiv regional Governor Oleh Syniehubov said on Telegram that preliminary information indicated the bodies of a woman and her son were recovered from beneath the ruins. Speaking earlier on Ukrainian television, Syniehubov said two ballistic missiles struck the area, nearly destroying a five-storey building.
“Rescue teams are on site,” Syniehubov said. “They are clearing rubble and searching for people who may still be trapped.”
Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said search-and-rescue operations were continuing amid fears that additional victims remained under the debris.
Syniehubov said about 25 people were injured, with at least 16 hospitalized, including one woman in serious condition. He added that customers may have been inside shops and a café on the building’s ground floor when the explosion occurred.
Russia’s Defence Ministry rejected Ukrainian accounts of the strike, saying reports of a missile attack were false. In a statement posted on Telegram, the ministry suggested the blast resulted from the detonation of Ukrainian ammunition rather than a Russian strike.
“Video footage published seconds before the explosion shows thick smoke of unknown origin, which with high probability indicates a detonation of stored Ukrainian military ammunition at the ‘Persona’ shopping centre,” the ministry said.
The Russian statement said the reports were intended to divert international attention from a New Year’s Eve strike that Moscow blamed on Ukraine, which hit a hotel in a Russian-held part of Ukraine’s southern Kherson region. Ukraine has said its attacks target Russian military and energy infrastructure.
Vladimir Saldo, the Russia-installed governor of the occupied part of Kherson region, told the TASS news agency that the death toll from the New Year’s Eve strike had risen to 28.
Kharkiv, located about 30 kilometers (18 miles) from the Russian border, repelled Russian advances during the opening weeks of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. While Russian forces later shifted their focus to eastern Ukraine, the city has remained a frequent target of missile and drone attacks.
The latest strike underscores the continued vulnerability of urban centers far from active front lines and highlights sharply conflicting narratives from Kyiv and Moscow, as civilian casualties remain a central and contested feature of the nearly three-year-old war.
