Residents in Ukraine’s second-biggest city, Kharkiv, were shelled again on Wednesday after Russian missiles struck apartment blocks and wounded at least one civilian, just as Moscow announced an escalation of its war.

“It was relatively quiet in our area and now you see what happened,” Lyubov Grygorivna, 65, told AFP in front of a badly damaged block of flats.

Kharkiv, a key hub in the north-east just 40 kilometers south of the Russian border, was attacked on the first day of the February 24 invasion, but its Ukrainian defenders held out and has been bombed regularly ever since.

In recent weeks, the city has been spared an intensified bombardment as a Ukrainian counter-offensive swept Russian land forces out of the region.

However, Russia can still launch missiles from its own territory.

Grygorivna was nearing retirement after 45 years of working in the neighborhood’s municipal services, loudly leading clean-up squads that climbed through rubble.

“War is a disaster. It’s terrifying. It’s painful… It’s miserable. How can you bear such things?” She asked.

“So many have lost their homes and winter is coming. It’s terrible. Every night we go to bed scared. But we keep working. You shoot and we work,” she added.

Kharkiv Mayor Igor Terekhov said four projectiles hit Kholodnogorsky district overnight, hitting two apartment blocks, a construction site and some civilian infrastructure.

Ten residents were trapped in one block until rescuers could arrive, but officials said only one was injured.

Air raid sirens continued at the scene throughout the morning, mingling with bells from the gilded domes of Saint Sofia Church, where Orthodox believers gathered to celebrate the birth of the Virgin Mary.

Lyubov Prokopivna, an 85-year-old pensioner, examined the rubble of her apartment on the top floor of the nine-story Slavi 11 block of modest private housing in the Zalintyne district.

She was at her son’s house at 2 a.m. when the rocket struck.

“I usually sleep in the bedroom. All the windows were broken, the tv, everything is a mess. If I had been here, I would not have survived,” she said.

Anna Verbytska, 41, slept with her husband on a lower level.

Her family was unharmed, but the windows blew in and the water is now shut off.

She swept up the glass quietly while daughter Sofia, 12, slept on the sofa, exhausted after a night of looking after cat Tasya.

“The heating is broken, winter is just around the corner. The car was broken too,” she said as four burly neighbors carried a stunned elderly lady in a blanket down the dusty stairs.

The renewed bombing of their homes was a blow to many Ukrainians as Russian President Vladimir Putin mobilized reservists to regain initiative in the conflict.

“I ask all Russians, may God give them wisdom, to flee, (ignoring the mobilization), to go…to finally wake up, but not to come to fight us,” said 63-year-old Svitlana.

“Can you see it? They kill civilians. There is nothing here but gardens and civilian houses. I turn to you, the international community, close the sky over Kharkiv. Don’t let (Putin) destroy us,” she said.

Another resident, Galyna, 50, said she “can’t understand the people he’s calling to fight us.”

“We protect our homeland. This is Ukraine and they are at war… for what? Against who?” she said.

“What do you want to free us from? From our houses? From our relatives? From friends? What else? From life…they want to free us from life,” she said.

dc/pmu/jmm