Local authorities in Kharkiv say two missiles hit a hardware hypermarket as part of the renewed Russian assault on the city.
At least seven people have been killed in separate attacks in Ukraine and Russia, according to officials, as Moscow steps up its offensive in northeastern Ukraine.
Two Russian missiles hit a hardware hypermarket where about 200 people were believed to have been in the first attack on Saturday, Oleh Syniehubov, Kharkiv regional governor, said on his Telegram channel.
Four people were killed and at least 38 injured, Syniehubov said, adding that the two deceased were employees of the store and that the fire caused by the explosion was now under control.
“This attack on Kharkiv is another manifestation of Russian madness,” said Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Zelenskyy, reacting to news of the attack. He noted that the target was not military infrastructure, but one of the city's largest shopping centers.
Russia has repeatedly stated that it does not attack civilian infrastructure. However, figures from the United Nations, Ukrainian officials and aid groups have reported tens of thousands of civilian casualties since the start of the Russian invasion more than two years ago.
“I was at my workplace. I heard the first blow and… my colleague and I fell to the ground. There was the second impact and we were covered in debris. Then we started crawling towards higher ground,” he told Reuters news agency Dmytro Syrotenko, who had a large cut on his face.
Ivor Terekhov, mayor of Kharkiv, said a second Russian attack occurred in the city center, wounding at least 11 people.
Attacks on Belgorod
Later on Saturday, the governor of Russia's southern Belgorod region said three people had been killed in two separate Ukrainian attacks in the area.
Viacheslav Gladkov said a man and a woman were killed in the rocket attack in the village of Oktyabrsky and ten other people were wounded. He added that in another attack on the village of Dubovoye he killed a woman who was working in his garden.
Gladkov said air defense units intercepted 15 targets in the air.
Russian President Vladimir Putin previously promised to establish a “buffer zone” in Kharkiv, in what he calls a response to kyiv's bombing of Russian border regions such as Belgorod. Russia frequently launches airstrikes against Ukraine from the Belgorod region.
Russian troops launched a cross-border assault on May 10 on the northeastern front of the Kharkiv region. That assault opened a new front in the war in what kyiv said was an effort to divert its outnumbered troops from the east, where the fiercest fighting is taking place.
Kharkiv – Ukraine's second-largest city, located about 30 kilometers (18 miles) from the Russian border – has faced a wave of almost daily attacks that began months ago as Russian forces advanced on the country's eastern front.
Most of the energy infrastructure has been severely damaged in the city, which is still home to around 1.3 million people.
Although it is still far from the city, if Russian forces were to take control of Kharkiv, it would test kyiv's morale, said Al Jazeera's John Holman, reporting from the Ukrainian capital.
“If they manage to get the people out and depopulate the city, that would be seen as a morale boost for Russia and a devastating blow for Ukraine,” Holman said.
In their respective messages about the Kharkiv attacks, both Zelenskyy and Syniehubov took the opportunity to renew a request to the Western allies to send more air defense to protect the city.
“When we tell world leaders that Ukraine needs sufficient air defense protection, when we say that real determination is needed: to be allowed to protect the lives of our people in the most effective way,” the president said.
