Russia says attacks not hitting civilians. Scenes in cities tell a different story.
Ukrainians are huddled in bunkers and basements as the Russian advance into their country deepens.
KYIV, Ukraine — From what was left of her fourth-floor balcony, an elderly woman tossed piece after piece of debris to the grass below. Out went heaps of glass, insulation, and wood. She occasionally paused to survey the damage around her.
She is among the scores of Ukrainian civilians displaced from their homes in Kyiv on Friday after an unidentified projectile struck just outside their apartment block before dawn, severely damaging the building and wounding several residents, including at least one in critical condition. The apparent Russian strike left behind a large crater that now sits just a few yards from a playground, which remained empty Friday except for one young boy digging in the dirt.
Total numbers of civilian casualties in Ukraine remain unclear with no comprehensive figures released by Ukraine’s government. Early Friday, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, said at least 137 people — civilians and military personnel — had been killed in the Russian attacks.
But Russia is facing growing accusations that its barrages are hitting civilian areas, and the tally of Ukrainians killed or injured could climb sharply as Russian forces push into Kyiv and other major cities, many now surrounded by Russian forces.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov claimed Friday that “no strikes are being made on civilian infrastructure.”
But across the country, Ukrainians are huddled in bunkers and basements as the Russian advance into Ukraine deepens. Under international humanitarian law, warring parties are required to be able to justify their targets and avoid civilian infrastructure. Intentionally targeting civilian infrastructure is a war crime.
On Friday, Amnesty International said Russia is carrying out “indiscriminate attacks on civilian areas and strikes on protected objects such as hospitals.”
Russian forces have used “explosive weapons with wide area effects in densely populated areas,” Agnès Callamard, the group’s secretary general, said in a statement, noting that some of these attacks may qualify as war crimes.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said in a statement Friday that four people were killed when a hospital in Donetsk was attacked on Thursday, in what it called a “direct contravention of international humanitarian law.”
Andriy Zablotskiy, 37, was asleep in one room and his wife and 5-year-old son were in another when the blast struck just outside their windows early Friday in Kyiv. They ran to their bathroom. But then, fearing the building might collapse, fled to the street in their pajamas. Despite the scale of the damage in their apartment, which is on the second floor, no one in the family was injured.
They later returned — and made sure to rescue their gray cat Anatoly — before relocating to a friend’s house. Much of what was left in their apartment was covered in shards of glass that crunched under Zablotskiy’s feet as he gestured to the damage: Windows blown out. Their electric fireplace destroyed. Books, bottles of champagne, and clothes strewn about.
To rebuild, he said, he will essentially have to start from scratch.
His family has lived in the apartment since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. His parents later moved to a village 30 miles from Kyiv, where they are now surrounded by Russian forces.
Despite his sadness, he said: “There’s nothing I can do, so I can’t really be worried.”
Outside, civilians and some uniformed cleanup crews plucked through the massive pile of debris, transferring it bit by bit to a wagon connected to a tractor that periodically hauled it away. Others gathered around to gape at the scene. Some filming it on their phones and expressing gratitude they themselves were not the ones wounded or displaced.
Crumpled air conditioners and satellite dishes hung off the building. A winter parka dangled from one of the top floors. A blown-out window revealed a glimpse into someone’s closet where a fur coat hung from a hanger. Through another, a poster of the famous Ukrainian poet known as Kobzar Taras.
In one neighborhood in Kharkiv, in the country’s east, the target was likely the Academy of the National Guard. But what appeared to be a mortar from a 300-millimeter Smerch artillery rocket apparently missed its intended target, landing instead in the middle of a crosswalk in a civilian area that includes apartment buildings, a large market and a KFC. It was eventually removed from the street and an orange barrier was placed around the crater it left behind.
It was unclear if the rocket carried a single warhead or cluster munitions, the latter of which are banned by most countries, with the exception of Russia, the United States and some others.
In another district just three miles away, the booster section of a Russian multiple-launch rocket system landed in the middle of the street, like an arrow lodged in the asphalt. It narrowly missed a produce store.
The Friday afternoon shelling was so close to Kharkiv’s city center that four men walking by the main square at that time started running for shelter at the sound of the loud booming. A group of people standing in line at the pharmacy promptly dispersed. The air smelled of sulfur.
An upscale hotel told its guests to shelter in the underground parking garage. One young girl started crying at the sound of bombardment.
About 45 minutes outside Kharkiv, the Russians targeted a military airfield in Chuhuiv, but the strike hit a residential apartment building, leading to multiple casualties including a teenage boy.
The assault in Ukraine’s second-largest city, just 25 miles from the Russian border, has been largely kept to the outskirts. But Friday’s sporadic shelling could be heard as some locals waited in a long line at one of the few gas stations still open.
As people waited more than an hour for fuel, they wondered if they should leave Kharkiv and go west. But then that would put them on a road going through Kyiv. Many planned to stay put — and just stock up on food, alcohol and cigarettes.
When a new series of explosions could be heard in the distance, people casually looked up to the gray, winter sky. They didn’t get out of line, resorting to dark humor.
“We’re all going to get blown up while waiting to buy gas,” one man said.
Khurshudyan reported from Kharkiv, Ukraine. Whitney Shefte in Kyiv and Alex Horton in Washington contributed to this report.
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