Kharkiv's mayor calls for support to prevent city being a 'second Aleppo'

Kharkiv's mayor has called on US politicians to vote through a fresh package of military aid to prevent the city suffering from Syrian civil war levels of destruction because it does not have the air defences to prevent long-range Russian attacks.

- Dan Sabbagh

Ihor Terekhov said that Russia had switched tactics to try and destroy the city's power supply and terrorise its 1.3 million citizens by firing into residential areas, with locals hit with power cuts lasting hours at a time.

The mayor of Ukraine's second city described the $60bn (£48bn) US military aid package, currently stalled in Congress, as of "critical importance for us" and urged the west to refocus on the war, which has lasted more than two years.

"We need that support to prevent Kharkiv [becoming] a second Aleppo," Terekhov said, referring to the Syrian city heavily bombed by Russian and Syrian government forces at the height of the country's civil war a decade ago.

On 22 March Russian attacks destroyed a power station on the eastern edge of the city as well all its substations; a week later officials acknowledged a second plant 30 miles to the south east of the city had been eliminated in the same attack.

Power in the city, less than 15 miles from the Russian border, was interrupted after another bombing raid this week, with the Metro briefly halted. Local residents said that there was typically a few hours of supply a day in the city centre - although in the outskirts the situation was said to be better.

Children are educated either online or in underground schools for their own safety. The water supply remains on, but Terekhov said there were worries that the Russian military may switch to targeting gas distribution, following an attack on storage facilities in the west of the country last week.