Russian forces have been pounding the city for over a week killing civilians, and hitting apartment buildings and schools, regional authorities said.
Russia renewed shelling of Kharkiv and the surrounding countryside in what Kyiv says is a bid to force Ukraine to pull resources from the main battlefield in Donbas to protect civilians from attack.
Russia says it has been aiming at military sites and denies taking aim at civilians. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said "Russian Armed Forces do not work with civilian targets".
The strikes that began on Tuesday (June 21) were the worst for weeks in an area where normal life had been returning since Ukraine pushed Moscow's forces back in May.
Kharkiv suffered heavy bombardment from the very start of the Russian invasion on February 24, which left much of the country's city of 1.5 million a wasteland of ruined buildings and debris.
