At least 17 injured after Russian missiles hit Ukraine’s Kharkiv

Rescuers search rubble after two S-300 missiles hit the centre of Ukraine’s second-biggest city.

At least 17 people have been injured, two of them seriously, after Russian missiles hit residential buildings in the city of Kharkiv.

Regional Governor Oleh Syniehubov said that two S-300 missiles hit buildings in the centre of Ukraine’s second-biggest city late on Tuesday night, and 14 people had been sent to hospital.

“Two women are in a serious condition,” he said in a post on Telegram.

Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said the missiles struck “precisely where there is no military infrastructure and precisely where there are in fact residences”.

“There are at least 10 damaged buildings. Rescue teams are continuing to go through the rubble,” he wrote on Telegram. “And there is plenty of rubble.”

Ukraine’s Emergency Services said one of the missiles hit a three-storey building that had previously housed a medical centre.

Kharkiv lies just 30km (19 miles) from the border with Russia in Ukraine’s northeast and has come under frequent bombardment since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of the country in February 2022.

There was no immediate comment from Moscow on the attack on Kharkiv but the Defence Ministry said its air defences destroyed seven Ukrainian missiles and four drones over Russia’s Belgorod region about 80km (50 miles) from Kharkiv.

The region’s governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said there were no immediate reports of casualties.

Russian forces advanced across swathes of the Kharkiv region shortly after invading Ukraine but were pushed back in a rapid Ukrainian advance in September 2022.