NBC News has not independently verified the number of people who died.
The renewed attacks so far have largely spared the city center, where cafés are reopening and public transportation is returning. But the ongoing strikes illustrate the grating toll of what is turning into a prolonged war of attrition.
“What [the Russians] can’t take, they just ruin,” said Roman Dudin, head of the Kharkiv branch of Ukraine’s Security Service, speaking to NBC News in the basement of an undisclosed building. Intelligence officers here have kept their office addresses secret to avoid being targeted by Russian missiles.
“Ukrainian troops have pushed them back, and now they are being aggressive,” he said. “The attacks will only end when they have no equipment left.”
After three months of war, missile strikes have become routine for many here.
“At first, we were crying all the time. We were scared. We were always lying down on the ground because of airstrikes,” said Svetlana Yeryomenko, 64, who was reading in her second-floor apartment in March when a missile hit, trapping her under her ceiling.
Yeryomenko spent weeks in the hospital recovering from injuries, and she still has trouble walking.
“Now, I just tell myself, ‘If it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen,’” she said. “It will only be safe when the war is over.”
In Kuzinskiy’s neighborhood, locals helped pick up pieces of shrapnel sprayed out along the road. Neighbors swept up broken glass from the windows of nearby houses that had been blown out due to the shockwave.
Kuzinskiy was looking for his 9-year-old cat, Sonia, in the rubble. But when he found her, she was already dead. A piece of shrapnel had torn through her side. Her eyes were still open.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
