Russian troops destroy a TV tower in Kharkiv
Today (April 22, 2024) the Russian troops targeted a TV tower in Kharkiv, destroying it, reports the representative of the Institute of Mass Information in the Kharkiv oblast.
Kharkiv mayor Ihor Terekhov reported on the explosion at 4:37 p.m.
The IMI representative notes that reports from the locals about TV signal going out in the city started coming later. There have been no reports of issues with the radio signal yet.
The chair of the Kharkiv Oblast Military Administration, Oleh Synehubov, said that none of the TV tower's employees were injured, as they were in a bomb shelter.
He added that there were some interruptions in the digital television signal at that moment and urged the people to only trust verified sources of information.
Russia just struck the TV tower in Kharkiv, messing with Ukrainian digital signal. It's their scorched-earth tactic in action, déjà vu from spring 2022 pic.twitter.com/rwGOHyaEg2
— Maria Avdeeva (@maria_avdv) April 22, 2024
The Kharkiv TV tower was the tallest building in the city – 245 meters high.
"The strike on the TV tower in Kharkiv is part of Russia's systematic, large-scale campaign targeting Ukraine's civilian population. TV tower destruction is a war crime both under Ukrainian law and under international humanitarian law. Civilian facilities such as TV towers are under total protection and cannot be a legitimate target in an armed conflict. We demand a thorough investigation and an appropriate response from the international community," said Oksana Romaniuk, director of the IMI.
The Russians resumed the shelling of Ukrainian TV and radio infrastructure in 2024.
Previously, the IMI recorded such incidents back at the beginning of the full-scale invasion in 2022 (back then, 16 cases of the Russians shelling TV towers, which are civilian objects, were recorded).
In March 2024, the Russian troops deliberately struck TV infrastructure in Kharkiv oblast with drones. They also carried out missile and air strikes on the radio facilities in the Sumy oblast, leaving some municipalities without TV or radio signal. Later, Suspilne reported that due to the strikes their T2 TV channels and radio channels were temporarily unavailable in both oblasts.
The Kharkiv Oblast Military Administration chair Oleh Syneguhov said that the Russians deliberately mass targeted the television and radio infrastructure of Kharkiv Oblast with drones on the night of March 14.
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