Downtown Kharkiv hit by shelling

STORY: According to Ukrainian emergency services, two rockets hit. There were no casualties reported.

“We suffer, animals suffer, the whole country suffers,” local resident Eleonora Ponomarenko told Reuters.

On Friday (June 24), Ukraine's defense ministry said that Ukrainian armed forces units were under constant artillery fire in the Kharkiv area.

Kharkiv suffered heavy bombardment from the very start of the Russian invasion, which left much of the city of 1.5 million a wasteland of ruined buildings and debris.

Russian strikes that began on Tuesday (June 21) on Ukraine's second city were the worst for weeks in an area where normal life had been returning since Ukraine pushed Moscow's forces back in May.