LVIV: Four more people were killed and nine wounded as a barrage of Russian air and rocket strikes pounded the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Wednesday morning, the local emergency services and Mayor Ihor Terekhov said.

"Kharkiv is a Russian-speaking city. Every fourth person in Kharkiv has relatives in the Russian Federation. But the city's attitude to Russia today is completely different to what it ever was before," he said in an online video statement.

"We never expected this could happen: total destruction, annihilation, genocide against the Ukrainian people - this is unforgivable."