A residential neighborhood in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, has been hit by a rocket attack on Monday, according to Ukrainian officials and multiple social media videos geolocated by CNN.
The videos show multiple rockets exploding closely together in a residential part of the Saltivka neighborhood in north-east Kharkiv, close to a supermarket.
One video shows a rocket booster lodged in the street pavement, as civilians look on.
According to the Kharkiv City Council, the latest shelling of the city has left one female civilian dead, and 31 wounded. The wounded are made up of 15 servicemen and 16 civilians, according to the city council in a news statement.
Dan Kaszeta, a London based defense specialist and an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, said the images are consistent with a multiple rocket launch system attacks.
“The appearance of at least one image of a rocket booster section lends credence to this having been a rocket attack,” he said.
Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s head of the ministry of internal affairs, said “Kharkiv has just been subjected to massive Grad shelling! Dozens of victims.”
He described the situation as “a nightmare."
Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova also took to Facebook to describe the situation in the city. “It’s more hellish in Kharkiv today than it was yesterday."
Venediktova posted a video showing a missile that hit a kitchen window and tore off the leg of a woman who later died in hospital, she said.
More background: Over the last few days, the Kharkiv City Council has recorded 44 wounded, including 20 servicemen, and a total of seven killed. The seven fatalities include two servicemen and five civilians.
CNN is reaching to the Russian authorities for comment on today’s attack.
On Monday, CNN witnessed on the Russian side of the border south of Belgorod at least three ‘Uragan’ multiple rocket launchers heading towards the Kharkiv front line. They saw three launchers and a loading vehicle with missiles on it.
On Friday, Russia's foreign minister Sergey Lavrov sought to reassure the world about civilian casualties on day two of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
"Nobody is going to attack the people of Ukraine," he said during a heated news conference, telling CNN that there were "no strikes on civilian infrastructure."