Kharkiv governor called the attack a ‘war crime against civilians’
Ukraine on Friday accused Russian forces of hitting a mental hospital near the eastern Ukrainian town of Izyum, but emergency services said no one was injured.
“All 30 staff and 330 patients were in a bomb shelter at the time of the attack,” Ukraine’s national emergency service said in a statement.
Oleh Synegubov, governor of the Kharkiv region which includes Izyum, had earlier on Friday described the attack as “a war crime against civilians” and repeated allegations that Russian forces were committing genocide in Ukraine.
Russia has denied targeting civilians in what it calls a “special operation” to disarm and “denazify” Ukraine.
The attack near Izyum follows the shelling of a hospital in the southern town of Mariupol, in which Ukrainian officials said three people were killed on Wednesday, including a child. Russia said it would investigate the incident, but some officials dismissed reports of the attack as “fake news”.
Synegubov separately said Russian forces repeatedly shelled residential areas of Kharkiv and Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said 48 schools were destroyed in the city, which has around 1.4 million people in peacetime.
Synegubov said there was no danger to civilians after an institute containing a nuclear laboratory was hit.
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An adviser to the Ukrainian Interior Ministry said on Thursday that Russian planes had bombed the Kharkiv institute which houses an experimental nuclear reactor.
All Ukrainian nuclear power plants are operating stably, but staff at the Zaporizhzhia plant face “psychological pressure” at work after being captured by Russian forces, Ukrainian nuclear company Energoatom said.
Radiation levels at all factories had not changed, he said.
