KHARKIV, Ukraine (Reuters) – Kateryna Velnychuk was taking an afternoon nap when an explosion shattered the windows of her ground-floor apartment, spraying shrapnel that tore through walls and wardrobes.
A Russian-led bomb had exploded in the outer courtyard of the five-story Soviet-era building, killing a postman on his rounds. As her apartment filled with thick, milky smoke, the 22-year-old turned to see blood pouring from her boyfriend Vladyslav’s head.
“Since we lived … in a state of war, there was no sense of fear at that time,” Velnychuk said. “You just realize there was an explosion. The only thought in your head is ‘I hope we survive’.”
As Russia has intensified its air campaign against Ukraine over the past month, pounding its energy infrastructure and urban areas, no major city has been hit harder than Kharkiv.
Just 30 km (18 miles) from the Russian border in northeastern Ukraine, Kharkiv was already the most exposed to rocket attacks and shelling.
But the drying up of Western military support in recent months – as a vital US military aid package stalled in Congress amid Republican resistance – has left Kharkiv even more dangerously unprotected.
“We have a catastrophic shortage of air defense systems,” Governor Oleh Synehubov told Reuters in the city’s vast central square, Freedom Square. “Not only in the Kharkiv region, but throughout the country. Especially in the Kharkiv region.”
The city is so close to the border that Russian missiles can reach their target in less than a minute. Deploying Ukraine’s valuable air defenses, such as the US-made Patriot surface-to-air missile systems, which are high-value targets for Russian airstrikes, must be done more carefully so close to enemy lines, officials say.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who has made an urgent appeal for more air defense supplies from the West, said this week that nearly a quarter of Kharkiv had been destroyed.
He accused Russia of trying to reduce the city – which was home to 2 million people before the war – to rubble, paving the way for its troops to advance. He said the Ukrainian army would repel any such offensive.
The bombings come as momentum on the battlefield has shifted in Russia’s favor, more than two years since it launched its invasion in February 2022.
Russia denies targeting civilians and says Ukraine’s energy system is a legitimate military target. The Russian Defense Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this story.
Reuters interviewed 15 civilians in Kharkiv who expressed their determination to remain in their homes despite the attacks, although two of them flagged the bleak situation on the power front as a real concern.
At least 10 missiles rained down on Kharkiv on Thursday, causing emergency blackouts for 200,000 people in the surrounding region, as Russia launched its third major airstrike on energy infrastructure across Ukraine in recent weeks.
The region’s chief prosecutor, Oleksandr Filchakov, told Reuters that all power plants in the Kharkiv region had been damaged or destroyed since Russia renewed its airstrike last month, causing large-scale power outages.
Russia has tested a new type of guided bomb dropped from an aircraft at least six times since Tuesday, he said, like the one that hit the yard outside Velnychuk’s home.
The weapon, which Filchakov called a “unified multipurpose guided munition”, weighs just 250 kilograms (550 pounds) and has a range of 90 km (56 miles), meaning planes don’t have to risk getting close to city defenses .
While guided bombs are less accurate and destructive than other missiles used by Russia, such as the S-300 and Iskander, they are much cheaper for Russia to produce, he said.
“The (attacks) are mainly aimed at intimidating the civilian population,” Filchakov told Reuters at his offices. “They are trying to force people to leave the city, to leave their buildings, houses, apartments… To spread panic in the city.”
Strikes and bombings have killed 97 civilians in the region this year, he said, adding that almost all recent attacks have hit civilian targets.
Velnychuk was shaken but suffered no serious injuries when the guided bomb fell outside her building on March 27, blowing out windows along two rows of red brick residential buildings. But both she and her partner, who works as a courier, said they had no intention of leaving the city.
“I always imagined that I would grow up and have some kind of life, move from the village to the city, study. Now I live and… I don’t even know if I will wake up tomorrow morning,” said Velynchuk, a hairdresser.
“But at the same time you want to live in your home. It’s normal to want to live where you were born.”
RUSSIA GAINS MOMENTUM
After months of attritional fighting, Russia is slowly advancing into Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region this year. Kiev’s forces find themselves on the defensive, facing shortages of artillery shells and air defenses, and grappling with manpower problems.
Ukraine’s parliament on Thursday passed a law to overhaul how the armed forces draft civilians into its ranks, in a bid to strengthen the front lines. The final law, however, excluded provisions on draconian penalties for draft evasion that had caused public outrage.
Much will depend on how well the new law, which is expected to come into force in mid-May, is implemented, according to analysts.
“There are two problems now: the munitions problem and the manpower problem. If they address them, I think Ukraine could hold back the Russian advance,” said Rob Lee, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, a Philadelphia think tank .
“But if these problems are not addressed, there is a possibility that Russia will make more gains this summer.”
Ukraine has tried to find a pressure point against Russia by bombing oil facilities far behind the front lines using long-range drones that, according to Reuters calculations, destroyed 14% of the giant’s oil refining capacity Russian energy.
Zelenskiy, who inspected Ukrainian defensive fortifications in the Kharkiv region on Tuesday, said Russia could prepare a major offensive in late May or June. He didn’t say where.
Russia, which captured the eastern city of Avdiivka in February and controls 18% of Ukraine’s territory, has advanced into the Donetsk region, maintaining pressure on the fronts west of Avdiivka and the city of Bakhmut.
Lee said Russia had resolved its manpower problems and managed to recruit large numbers of volunteers, allowing it to sustain losses in assaults, but that it faced equipment limitations that could become a problem next year.
Russia’s decision on where to attack, he said, will depend partly on where it believes Ukraine is weakest, although Moscow will likely maintain its focus on the eastern Donbass region.
Putin said last month that he did not rule out Russia seeking to establish a buffer zone within Ukrainian territory along the Russian border.
Oleksandr Kovalenko, an independent military analyst based in Odesa, said the attacks on Kharkiv appeared aimed at setting in motion such a plan by trying to scare people into leaving the city, laying the groundwork for a possible ground operation in a second moment.
“For the moment Russia does not have the forces and equipment to seize the city, but in the medium term it can terrorize the civilian population to prepare the corresponding conditions.”
‘How could I leave?’
Kharkiv, an industrial hub that once served as the capital of Soviet Ukraine, stands in stark contrast to 1.3 million people who live their lives amid regular air raid sirens and the sound of machine guns shooting down drones at night .
The city’s schools have been closed due to the attack threat and children are studying online. But authorities opened underground classrooms in a subway station to allow some pupils to come to lessons in person.
The city’s population plummeted to 300,000 after the invasion but, after Ukraine retook occupied areas of the region in two military offensives in 2022, it fell back to around 1.3 million, where it has remained ever since.
Viktoria Zaremba, 37, a web designer and mother of a 10-year-old boy, said more than two years of war have changed her perception of risk.
“There is no fear,” he said. He would only consider leaving Kharkiv if there was no central heating or electricity this winter, or a looming threat of occupation.
The number of attacks on the city and region began to increase in October, Filchakov said, rising more than 35% in the first three months of this year to 130 from 95 in the last quarter of 2023.
They escalated again this month, he said.
Rolling blackouts last up to 12 hours a day and traffic lights do not work. Mobile coverage is spotty, online GPS maps don’t work properly, and streetlights remain dark at night.
But Synehubov, the regional governor, said there was no sign that people were abandoning the city.
“I will never leave,” said Borys Nosov, 63, a retiree walking his dog in the city center. Nosov said he was a veteran of the 1979-1989 Soviet-Afghan war.
“This is my city. How could I leave and abandon it? I served in Afghanistan. It was terrifying. I think I’ll be fine.”