From: Maia Mikhaluk (775th day): Lately Kharkiv has been under daily missile and drone strikes. The current bombing of Kharkiv is the worst since putin’s army tried to besiege the city two years ago. Kremlin’s chief propagandist, Solovyov, said on TV that “Kharkiv must be wiped off the face of the earth.” That seems to be the only strategy ruzzians are capable of. They started this war with the claim that they were liberating ruzzian speakers in Ukraine. This “liberation” continues by leveling ruzzian speakers’ homes to the ground.
Before the war, Kharkiv was the largest ruzzian-speaking city in Ukraine. At the beginning of the invasion, only 300,000 residents remained in the city from a pre-war population of 2 million. But after ruzzians were pushed away from the city people returned and now, despite ongoing attacks and blackouts there is no large exodus from the city where about 1.3 million people continue to live their lives under the sounds of air raid sirens and explosions.
The New York Times wrote that the “deadly flurry” of Russian strikes on Kharkiv is one of the means of pressure on Ukrainian air defense. “Russia has replenished and expanded its stockpile of missiles, guided bombs and attack drones and is intensifying its bombing campaign across the country. At the same time, Ukraine’s air defenses are under increasing pressure, since the flow of American military aid stopped more than six months ago, and the future of this support remains uncertain, the NYT reminds.
Many of Kharkiv’s problems could be solved if the West provided powerful air defense systems or F-16 fighter jets that could counter Russian aircraft with new guided cruise bombs.
Since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion of Kharkiv, more than 20,000 buildings have been destroyed, and the reconstruction of all that was damaged will cost more than 10 billion dollars.
Our church in Kharkiv, under the leadership of pastor Sergei Sviridok, continues to serve their suffering communities with physical and spiritual help.
Voice of Ukraine 