Civilians killed in Russian missile strikes on Kyiv and Kharkiv

Russia has carried out a wave of attacks on Ukraine, killing five people and wounding at least 40 others, with a sports club in central Kyiv one of several civilian buildings damaged.

The early morning strikes targeted the Ukrainian capital and Kharkiv, with air raid sirens at 5.43am local time. About an hour later there were a series of explosions and burning debris fell from the sky.

Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, said air defences had shot down 21 out of 41 enemy missiles while others got through. Two people were killed and 35 wounded when an apartment block in Kharkiv was hit and caught fire.

In Kyiv, a Russian projectile landed on the roof of the Lokomotiv sports club, close to the southern railway station. It shattered balconies and windows in a 15-storey block opposite and in a dormitory used by railway workers, families, and students. Three other districts were targeted.

“It was fucking scary,” one resident, Margerita, told the Guardian. “There was a metallic sound and then our windows blew in. I found glass on my face. The Russians are crazy. They don’t care about human life.”

She added: “I really hope that the world helps us. We need more support because our enemy is more powerful than America. In my opinion the US is secretly afraid of Russia.”

Neighbours were sweeping up broken glass as firefighters examined the roof of the club on Tuesday morning. The blast destroyed Lokomotiv’s fan shop and wrecked the inside of the club house. The locker rooms were filled with rubble, next to a staircase decorated with signed and framed football shirts.

One resident, Natalia, said she woke her four-year-old daughter, Sofia, when she heard the alarm and took her to a basement shelter. The explosion blew in the window in Sofia’s room and dumped jagged shards of glass on her bed. “We always follow the alarms, thank god,” Natalia said.

Natalia’s husband, Oleg, said several people in their hostel were hit by flying glass. He said: “Kyiv is at least well-defended. They have it worse in Kharkiv because it’s close to the Russian border.”

Moscow’s relentless airstrikes on Ukrainian civilians meant there was no prospect of peace talks, or negotiations with Vladimir Putin, he said.

He added: “The Soviets arrested my great-grandfather and put him in in a gulag in the Solovetsky islands. They said he was a Ukrainian kulak [wealthy peasant]. He died there. Russia has been oppressing us for centuries.”

In Kharkiv, rescue workers were still digging through rubble to search for survivors, the city’s mayor, Ihor Terekhov, told local television. In the city of Pavlohrad, in the central-eastern Dnipropetrovsk region, at least one person was killed and one wounded.