Kharkiv stands in ruins after Russia attacks. Daily strikes have devasted the city and caused over €10 billion in damage to Kharkiv, Mayor Ihor Terekhov told Report.

According to the city’s head, Russia has been systematically targeting Kharkiv’s civilian infrastructure for over three years. More than 12,000 sites have been destroyed or damaged, and most of them are residential buildings.

“160,000 Kharkiv residents have lost their homes. Explosions every day, destruction every day, and sadly, deaths and injuries,” says Terekhov. 

Thousands of residents are left homeless

The mayor notes that over 9,500 of the destroyed sites are residential buildings, meaning Russian missiles and drones are primarily targeting civilians. Since February 2022, Kharkiv has not seen a single day without shelling.

“Currently, the need for windows exceeds 50,000. Every strike increases this number by another thousand, one and a half, two. The record was more than five thousand in one attack,” the mayor revealed in June.

Reconstruction will require billions

“We are facing massive destruction. The city will need even more funds to rebuild,” Terekhov states, estimating the damage at around €10 billion.

Still, he stressed, “no amount of money can bring back the lives and health lost.”

Terekhov underscored that Kharkiv is under constant attack and that “civilian targets are primarily being hit.”

The scale of destruction and number of victims make it clear: Russia is deliberately devastating Ukraine’s largest city near the border.

Earlier, Russia tested its new modified bomb in an attack on Kharkiv. Children, an infant, and a pregnant woman were among the wounded. A new type of aerial bomb, the UMPB-5, with 250-kg warhead, hit the central part of the city in the first known use of this weapon.

Two airstrikes were launched from over 100 kilometers away. The strikes damaged 20 residential buildings, including 17 apartment blocks in the Shevchenkivskyi and Kholodnohirskyi districts. The blast wave shattered over 600 windows, forming a crater in the street. Seven cars were destroyed by fire, and 18 more were damaged. One industrial facility caught fire, resulting in a large-scale blaze.

Russia is wiping out Ukrainian cities daily. In the first half of 2025, 6,754 civilians in Ukraine were killed or injured, the highest number for a six-month period since 2022, says Miroslav Jenča, UN Assistant Secretary-General for Europe, Central Asia, and the Americas, UkrInform reports.

Daily shelling of Ukrainian towns and villages with missiles and drones has only intensified, he said during a UN Security Council meeting. June saw the highest monthly civilian casualty count in three years.

In July alone, Russia launched at least 5,183 long-range munitions at Ukraine, including a record 728 drones on 9 July. Kyiv and the port city of Odesa have been hit hardest in recent weeks.

Even Ukraine’s western regions, once considered relatively safe, are no longer spared from massive aerial attacks.

According to official UN data, at least 13,580 civilians have been killed since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, including 716 children. Another 34,115 people have been injured.

“There is no safe place in Ukraine today,” said Jenča.

He stressed that international law clearly prohibits attacks on civilians and that the UN strongly condemns all such assaults.

On 21 July, French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-Noël Barrot came to Kyiv for a two-day visit. After arriving, he immediately headed to the sites hit during the massive overnight attack on the Lukianivka district.

“Shelters themselves are no longer entirely safe, as the metro station next to me, which serves as a shelter for Kyiv residents, became a target of the attack. It happened at the same time President Zelenskyy, on Saturday morning, declared Ukraine’s readiness to enter new negotiations with Russia,” he emphasized. 

In Kyiv, Foreign Minister Barrot is set to meet with Zelenskyy, new Prime Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko, and his counterpart Andrii Sybiha, UkrInform reports. 

During the visit, he will also take part in Ukraine’s Ambassadors Conference and visit the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant. The facility is still undergoing the restoration of the site after the Russian occupation in 2022 and a Shahed strike, which damaged the protection shield over the plant itself. 

“Our embassy staff, like all Kyiv residents, were forced to seek shelter from 3 AM to 5 AM,” the minister said.

He noted that the wave of attacks struck not only civilian infrastructure but also kindergartens, supermarkets, and residential buildings. Two people were killed in an attack, and a dozen civilians were hospitalized. 

“That’s why the package of mass sanctions adopted at the European level last Thursday is crucial to increase pressure on Vladimir Putin, to raise the cost of this outrageous war, and to compel him to cease fire and engage in talks that will lead to a just and lasting peace,” Barrot stated.

On 18 July, the EU agreed on a new Russia sanctions package, with ambassadors reaching consensus on the bloc’s 18th sanctions round. The round targets key sectors of the Russian economy, including Slovakia and Malta. The restrictions hit energy, the main source of Moscow’s revenues. 

“Putin’s criminal war is approaching our borders,” the Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski has emotionally declared after the strike on Barlinek. On 16 July, a Russian drone attack on Ukraine damaged the Polish company Barlinek in the city of Vinnytsia.

As a result of the strike, two employees were hospitalized in serious condition, suffering from numerous burns. 

“Russian drones struck the Barlinek group’s factory in Vinnytsia. The factory director just told me this was done deliberately from three directions. There are wounded, two of them with severe burns,” Sikorski wrote on X.

Barlinek is a global manufacturer of wooden flooring, supplying products to 75 countries across 6 continents. The company also produces sports flooring, skirting boards, and biofuel pellets and briquettes for fireplaces. The Vinnytsia factory was opened in 2007.

Ukrainian emergency services and representatives of the Polish consulate were working on the attack site.

The Polish Foreign Ministry has informed a Russian diplomat that the products of the Polish company Barlinek in Ukraine serve civilian purposes. Therefore, Russia’s strike on the company’s factory in Vinnytsia violates international law and may have legal consequences in the future, UkrInform reports.

Paweł Wroński, the Polish Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson, says that the bombing of the Barlinek factory could be connected to the meeting of the Ukrainian, Polish, and Lithuanian foreign ministers of the Lublin Triangle in Lublin.

Ukraine, Poland, and Lithuania form new alliance to counter Putin’s weaponized historic narratives amid war of attrition

The main objective of these annual meetings, established in 2020, is to strengthen mutual military and cultural ties between the three countries and to support Ukraine’s integration into the EU and NATO.

Barlinek’s CEO, Wojciech Michałowski, reports that the attack severely damaged the factory. Production at the facility will be suspended for at least six months.