Ukrainian and Russian forces have engaged in street fighting in the city of Kharkiv (Kharkov) after an “intensive” artillery battle overnight.

Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv is known to many history buffs as the scene of a series of fierce battles between the Red Army and the German armed forces and Waffen SS during the Second World War, marked by large-scale tank clashes and bloody house-to-house fighting.

While much media attention has focused on the fighting near the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv (Kiev) until now, Kharkiv — a key city just south of the Russian border and to the north-west of the separatist people’s republics of Donetsk and Luhansk — has also seen its share of fighting, and appeared to be the scene of the war’s most significant clashes as of Sunday morning.

Oleh Sinegubov, the regional governor, confirmed that the “Russian enemy” had “broken into Kharkiv, including the city centre” on Sunday morning.

“Ukraine’s armed forces are destroying the enemy,” Sinegubov asserted confidently, asking the city’s civilian population — numbering close one and a half million, at least prior to the invasion — to remain indoors.