Russian strike on Kharkiv partially destroys residential building

A Russian strike has partially destroyed a residential building in Kharkiv, Ukraine, killing at least three people and injuring almost 30.

According to the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the building was undergoing repairs after a previous strike intended to make it fully habitable for the oncoming winter.

Images and footage shared on social media showed the large apartment block with a collapsed central section.

In a post on Telegram, Regional Governor Oleh Syniehubov said the strike was a glide bomb attack.

“People are still trapped under the rubble. One of the multi-story buildings suffered a direct hit. The rescue operation continues,” Syniehubov wrote.

The strike came as Ukrainian troops engaged in hand-to-hand combat with Russian forces at a huge processing plant in the town of Vovchansk in the Kharkiv border region that had been occupied for four months, officials said on Tuesday.

The plant, a partly steel structure with some 30 buildings, has been a Russian stronghold since May when Russia attempted to overstretch Ukrainian forces by launching a fresh assault in the area.

A statement from Ukrainian Military Intelligence said its units recaptured the Vovchansk plant after fierce fighting “in densely built-up conditions.”

The Russian onslaught has reduced Vovchansk and many other Ukrainian towns and villages to smoking piles of rubble and bombed-out residential buildings.

The effort to take back the plant was likely intended to demonstrate that Ukraine is not giving up its defence of the country’s northeast.

However, Ukrainian forces are also under severe pressure in the town of Vuhledar, one of a key belt of strongholds in the Donetsk region.

According to Andrii Kovalenko, head of Ukraine’s Centre for Combating Disinformation of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine, Russian forces are destroying Vuhledar with glide bombs while infantry units advance in an attempt to encircle the town.