(Reuters) -Russian missiles hit three sites in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, killing at least three people and injuring 16, local officials said early on Friday.
Accounts of the attack said the missiles hit a five-storey apartment block, a shop in a three-storey building and a sewing factory.
Regional Governor Oleh Syniehubov said the attacks on the city’s Novobazarskyi district, used the “double tap” technique that has occurred recently, delivering a second strike soon after an initial attack on a given site.
He said that, according to preliminary information, S-300 missiles were used.
“The third, fourth and fifth floors are destroyed, stairwells were destroyed, facades were destroyed,” Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov told public broadcaster Suspilne, describing damage to the apartment building.
Syniehubov said at least two children were among those injured in the attack, which occurred at about midnight local time. He warned that residents could be trapped underneath rubble left by the strike.
Kharkiv Police Chief Volodymyr Tymoshko told Suspilne he expected the death toll to rise given the scale of the destruction and the likelihood of shrapnel injuries.
Kharkiv withstood Russian advances in the early weeks of the invasion, but in recent weeks it has been repeatedly hit by Russian attacks.
Moscow denies deliberately targeting civilians. Thousands have been killed and injured since Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
(Reporting by Ron Popeski and Oleksander Kozhukhar; Editing by Leslie Adler, Deepa Babington and Josie Kao)
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