DRAMATIC footage captured the moment a Russian missile strike toppled a 787ft TV tower in Ukraine’s second largest city.
The huge structure snapped in half and collapsed as part of what President Volodymyr Zelensky said is Moscow’s plot to make Kharkiv “uninhabitable”.
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For weeks, Russia has been scaling up its assault on the city, pounding it with relentless waves of missile and drone strikes, terrorising its 1.3million residents and killing dozens.
“It is Russia’s clear intention to make the city uninhabitable,” Zelensky told US President Joe Biden after Monday’s strike took place just minutes before their scheduled call.
The president later added the attack was “an obvious attempt at intimidation so that the terror was visible to the whole city and an attempt to limit Kharkiv’s access to communication and information”.
The northeastern city lies just 30 miles from the Russian border, which makes it an easy target for ballistic missiles and other weapons as Ukraine’s air defences have dwindled.
“At the moment there are interruptions to the digital television signal,” regional Governor Oleh Syniehubov said.
Kharkiv’s power facilities have been damaged particularly badly since Russia last month began targeting the critical civilian infrastructure, focusing on its energy system.
On March 22, Russian attacks destroyed the city’s two main power plants and a network of substations, plunging the city into darkness and leaving thousands without electricity.
Ukraine is currently bracing itself for a new Russian mega blitz and Kharkiv appears to be Putin’s first target.
Experts fear the city could face a second ground offensive after beating off a tank assault on the first day of the war in February 2022.
Every day its residents live through an airborne terror as analysts say Putin is hellbent on depopulating the city.
Last week, Kharkiv’s mayor warned the frontline city is in danger of becoming a “second Aleppo” as Russian aerial attacks turn it into a wasteland.
Terekhov said that unless the West steps up and delivers crucial air defence systems – Kharkiv could suffer the same fate as the Syrian city of Aleppo, which heavy Russian bombing helped to decimate a decade ago.
Ihor Terekhov begged for the West to step in and deliver crucial air defences.
Referencing the now-passed US £50billion aid bill, he told The Guardian: “We need that support to prevent Kharkiv being a second Aleppo.”
Terekhov previously told The Sun that half the city’s 200 schools had already been destroyed by the war.
Some 150,000 of the residents have been made homeless by Russia’s bombardments and half the city’s hospitals and medical facilities have been hit.
We need that support to prevent Kharkiv being a second Aleppo
Kharkiv’s mayor Ihor Terekhov
However, amid the bombings and the blackouts Kharkiv’s residents look intent on staying put, according to a report by The Atlantic Council.
It comes as Kyiv’s top spy chief warned the new Russian offensive would start as soon as next month.
Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukraine’s feared GUR military intelligence, warned life would be even more “difficult” from mid-May through early June.
But he insisted Ukraine would endure and prevail.
Deliveries of US weapons are due to start within days after Republican congressmen finally ended a five-month deadlock in the House of Representatives.
The $61billion (£49billion) package is due to get final approval from the US Senate today.
Zelensky said the new weapons would let Ukraine’s forces “stabilise the front line”.
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