KHARKIV, Ukraine — Two rocket attacks hit military sites in central Kharkov just before dawn on Friday, the latest in a series of powerful nighttime attacks on the city that appear increasingly targeting sites used by the Ukrainian armed forces.
At least two soldiers have died, according to rescuers and police officers on the scene.
Ukrainian officials rarely release information about military casualties or damage to military sites and prohibit photographers from recording its destruction. The head of the Kharkov regional administration, Oleh Synyehubov, said only that a 71-year-old civilian was injured in the head by the blast.
On Friday, soldiers and aid workers covered in brick dust cleared the rubble from the courtyard of a two-storey building. Two vehicles, an SUV and a jeep, caked in dust and crushed by falling debris, had been dragged onto the street.
A plainclothes officer asked reporters to leave, explaining that the site was a military building.
Across the street, a second rocket destroyed a wing of the Agricultural Institute. Soldiers guarded the gate and other soldiers loaded boxes into vehicles at the entrance of a building.
The gardens of the institute were full of old vehicles, including three damaged Russian armored vehicles. One was marked with the letter “Z”, one of the code characters used by Russian troops fighting in Ukraine.
While much of the Russian bombing of Kharkiv seemed indiscriminate and indiscriminate, some recent ballistic missile attacks — including on Wednesday mornings — have landed in or near buildings and buildings used by the Ukrainian military, suggesting that Russian forces are more calculated. .