Russian missile attack sets houses on fire in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv

A Russian missile attack on the city of Kharkiv, in northeastern Ukraine, injured two people and set fire to three houses in the early hours of Friday (10), according to local authorities.

Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, which is just 30 km from the border with Russia, is particularly exposed to airstrikes and has been seriously hit when Moscow has stepped up its airstrikes in recent months.

Two people, including an 11-year-old child, were left in shock, Governor Oleh Syniehubov wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

Mayor Ihor Terekhov said an S-300 missile landed in the city, damaging 26 buildings and destroying two of them completely. He did not clarify what these buildings were.

A Reuters cameraman at the scene saw fires in what appeared to be residential homes at dawn. Emergency services rushed to put out the fires, working through the rubble.

Russia launched two S-300/S-400 missiles in the region overnight, Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Illya Yevlash said in a television broadcast. It was not clear where the second fell.

Another guided bomb attack damaged about 25 buildings when it fell near an infrastructure facility in the city of Derhachi, near the border with Russia, Syniehubov said.

Russia, which launched its full-scale invasion more than two years ago, stepped up its missile and drone attacks against Ukraine in March this year.

Electricity infrastructure has been seriously damaged, forcing authorities to introduce rolling blackouts in Kharkiv and the surrounding region, raising fears about what will happen when power consumption increases later this year.

Moscow denies targeting civilians in its attacks on Ukraine, but hundreds of civilians have died.

Russia maintains that its attacks on the power grid are legitimate and that several major recent attacks were considered retaliation for Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian oil refineries.