Ukraine war: Five things you need to know about the conflict on Wednesday

euronews.com:

Russian forces pounded Kharkiv and surrounding countryside with rockets, killing at least 20 people on Tuesday and Wednesday morning, in what Kyiv called a bid to force it to pull resources from the main battlefield to protect civilians from attack.

The strikes on Ukraine's second largest city were the worst for weeks in the area where normal life had been returning since Ukraine pushed Russian forces back in a major counter-offensive last month.

Kharkiv prosecutor Mikhailo Martosh told Reuters that it was probably caused by multiple rocket launchers, as he stood amid the ruins of cottages in a rural area on the city's outskirts.

Medical workers carried the body of an elderly woman out of the rubble of a burnt-out garage and into a nearby van.

"She was 85 years old. A child of the war (World War Two). She survived one war, but didn't make it through this one," said her grandson Mykyta. "There is nowhere to flee to... She didn't want to go anywhere from here."

"Russian forces are now hitting the city of Kharkiv in the same way that they previously were hitting Mariupol - with the aim of terrorising the population," Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said in a video address.

In Mykolaiv, a Russian missile strike on Wednesday killed at least one person and damaged buildings including a school, the local mayor said. Regional Governor Vitaliy Kim said earlier that seven missiles had hit the southern city.

In the main battlefield city of Sievierodonetsk, where Russia has claimed to have Ukrainian forces surrounded since last week, scenes filmed by a freelance journalist made clear the battle was not over, with Ukrainian troops able to resupply their garrison by crossing a river in inflatable rafts.

Inside Russia, a fire