Ukrainian firefighters put out fire at Kharkiv Housing and Communal College in Kharkiv, Ukraine on June 21. (Sofia Bobok / Anadolu Agency / Getty Images)
Ukrainian officials have reported an increase in Russian bombings around the northeastern city of Kharkiv in the past 24 hours, while the evacuation of people from Russian-occupied territories continued.
“Within 24 hours, the occupiers fired on the Kharsky, Industrial, Saltivsky and Nemyshlyansky districts of Kharkiv,” Oleh Syniehubov, head of the Kharkiv region’s military administration, told his official Telegram channel.
As a result of the Russian strikes at night, the building of one of the educational institutions in the Kharkov district of Kharkiv was significantly damaged, the facilities were destroyed by 40%. ”
A CNN team in the Kharkiv area heard explosions in the distance around 11pm local time (4am ET), then confirmed that they were coming from the educational institution mentioned by Syniehubov, a university, when it was attacked. .
According to Syniehubov, three civilians were killed and seven were injured in the last 24 hours.
In the line of contact, Ukrainian forces have repelled the attacks in the Izium area while Russia continued to maintain a defensive position around Kharkiv, trying to prevent a Ukrainian advance, Syniehubov added.
Fighting broke out when 993 people, including 254 children, were evacuated from temporarily occupied territories in the Kharkiv region, according to Syniehubov. More than 30 buses were used for evacuation in Chuhuiv and Kharkiv.
Background: On June 7, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported some 7.3 million border crossings from Ukraine, with at least 4.8 million refugees in Europe.
In May, Russian officials said nearly 1.1 million people had been evacuated from Ukraine to Russia since the Feb. 24 invasion. Of that number, about 200,000 were children.