Russian paratroopers have stormed a military hospital in Kharkiv as forces close in on Ukraine's second-largest city.
According to local reports an airborne assault was launched on the hospital overnight, with heavy fighting still heard in the area well after dawn.
'Russian airborne troops landed in Kharkiv... and attacked a local hospital, there is an ongoing fight between the invaders and the Ukrainians,' the Ukrainian Army wrote on the social media app Telegram.
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Casualty numbers are currently unknown, however following the attack Kharkiv Police Chief Volodymyr Tymoshko said the hospital remained under Ukrainian control and that his forces had suffered no losses.
'Currently the situation near the hospital is under control, security has been strengthened,' he said, per Sky News.
It's the first time in this war that paratroopers are understood to have carried out a landing inside a major city, with an airborne assault also having taken place at Hostomel airport near Kyiv on the first day of the Russian invasion.
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The news comes after Kharkiv suffered its heaviest night yet of bombardments, with shelling and missile fire impacting residential areas and significant parts of the city's centre, including the regional police department headquarters and a university building, the BBC reports.
At least 21 people have died with more than 112 injured in the overnight attacks, Kharkiv mayor Ihor Terekhov said.
The region's governor Oleh Synegubov said that Russian forces 'suffered significant losses' after attempting to enter the north and northeastern sectors of the city amid heavy fire from jet artillery, as the Russian military escalates its use of aerial warfare.
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One government advisor said that there was 'practically no areas left in Kharkiv where an artillery shell has not yet hit,' per the Daily Mail.
Kharkiv is currently believed to be mostly surrounded by Russian forces, however the government says it remains in control of the city seven days after Putin ordered his military to invade Ukraine.
The overnight bombardment comes after Russia was accused yesterday, March 1, of targeting a residential Kharkiv neighbourhood with cluster munitions - a banned weapon that indiscriminately disperses smaller bombs over a wide area - causing heavy civilian casualties.
Other places impacted by Russian missiles include the city's regional administration building and at least one school which was razed to the ground by shelling.
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Topics: Ukraine, Russia, World News
Hannah Smith