In Kharkiv, thousands of inhabitants without electricity after a Russian strike

According to the governor of the region, Oleg Sinegoubov, the Russian army fired on Kharkiv S-300 missiles, usually reserved for anti-aircraft defense but which Moscow also sometimes uses to target Ukrainian infrastructure.

The regional emergency services, for their part, indicated that the strikes destroyed an electrical transformer and hit a warehouse in this city which had some 1.4 million inhabitants before the war and that the Russian forces never succeeded. to take.

An AFP team, present in Kharkiv, could hear the explosions.

Located close to the Russian border, this town is regularly targeted by Russian forces who have however lost thousands of square kilometers in the region, thanks to a counter-offensive by the Ukrainian army which repelled the troops of Moscow beyond the Oskil River.

These Ukrainian successes prompted Russian President Vladimir Putin to decree a "partial" mobilization of reservists.

Following the Russian strikes, which caused no casualties, 18,500 residents of three districts of Kharkiv were plunged into darkness on Tuesday evening, without electricity. Power was still not restored Wednesday morning.

In the morning, AFP journalists saw firefighters on the site putting out a fire caused by at least two missiles which demolished a building, hit rails and destroyed two wagons that were there.

"It makes no sense" to aim for these rails. "There is no military infrastructure here," said Mikhail, a 34-year-old welder.

- "It's scary" -

The strikes on this railway site come a week after a similar bombardment in the region which hit apartment buildings in the process.

According to the Ukrainian presidency, six Ukrainian civilians were injured in Russian shelling during the day Tuesday in the Kharkiv region.

"It's scary to be here," admits Antonina Moussiyenko, a 42-year-old engineer, as workers work behind her to clear the debris.

"The anti-bombing alarm sirens ring constantly. You wait but you never know where it will fall," she said, waking up this morning in the dark because of the power cut.

If the gains of the Ukrainian counter-offensive in September protect Kharkiv from any Russian assault, the city always remains within range of Russian artillery.

In this Russian-speaking region, however, it is said loud and clear that the annexation votes, organized by Moscow in four regions of Ukraine and widely condemned by kyiv and its allies, will not change Ukrainian determination.

"These votes are not legitimate. We believe in our forces, we believe in the Ukrainian armed forces. In the end, victory will be ours," insists Denis Kotchkov, a 30-year-old railway worker.

"We are a Russian-speaking population, and what did we get? Did we get peace, fraternity? No, you see what we got," says his colleague Irina Maïor, 51, pointing to a mountain of debris.