A huge explosion in a Ukrainian city has been captured in harrowing video footage.
The terrifying blast is understood to have struck Chuguev airfield in the Kharkiv region of the city.
In a number of clips of the incident shared across social media, a huge bright orange blast wave, which lingers in the air, is seen erupting over the night sky, as reported by The Mirror.
Stunned citizens, filming from apartment blocks, jump backwards as the wave pans out.
Thermobaric or vacuum explosives, dubbed as the 'father of all bombs', suck oxygen from the surrounding air to generate high-temperature explosions.
They can vaporise a human body and were first developed by the Soviet Union and the US in the 1960s.
The blast comes after the Ukrainian ambassador to the US Oksana Markarova said yesterday the Kremlin had used the devastating bombs - banned by the Geneva Convention - during air strikes.
"They used the vacuum bomb today, which is actually prohibited by the Geneva convention," Markarova said after briefing members of the U.S. Congress.
"The devastation that Russia is trying to inflict on Ukraine is large."
Russia detonated the largest thermobaric weapon in 2007 which created an explosion equivalent to 39.9 tonnes.
Ten people were killed and 35 wounded in Kharkiv on Tuesday amid terrifying missile salvoes.
Stricken Ukrainian cities are being surrounded as Vladimir Putin’s tanks and invasion forces tighten their steel noose, barraging civilians and troops with rockets.
UK defence chiefs warned of an ever-increasingly more ruthless Russian assault on Ukraine’s civilians as its commanders became desperate to gain ground.
In another day of bloodshed, missiles hit Kyiv’s TV tower, killing five people and sending black smoke billowing over the capital’s centre- an attack branded “barbaric” by Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry.
Kyiv citizens were ordered to leave or die as Russian forces prepared to launch “precision” strikes against the country’s domestic SBU intelligence agency in the heart of Kyiv.
But, despite the onslaught, defiant President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s government remains in control of the capital with its brave combined force of soldiers and civilians ready to fight street by street.
Embattled Ukrainian troops held on ferociously to every city throughout the country, helped by Molotov Cocktail-hurling civilians, armed with AK47 assault rifles and bottles of petrol.
But despite the amazing spirit and bravery of Ukraine, rising numbers of civilian deaths over the last two days were an ominous sign that frustrated Russian commanders are resorting to even more lethal tactics.
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