A Russian strike on a residential neighbourhood in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv wounded 21 people including three minors, the regional governor said yesterday.

Oleg Synegubov posted on Telegram that eight of the victims were hospitalised, two in critical condition, after the strike late Saturday, when dozens of people were asleep in the two multi-storey buildings that were hit.

Russia has repeatedly targeted Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city near the Russian border in the country's east that counted 1.4 million inhabitants before Moscow launched its war in February 2022.

Rescue workers used torches to search through the rubble, while one girl shook with sobs and held fast to a corridor wall, too scared to descend the stairs and calling for her mother, an AFP reporter saw at the scene.