Ukraine has taken control of Kharkiv after Russian troops entered the city, it has been claimed.
Enemy missiles rained down on Ukraine’s second city while fierce street fighting broke out overnight.
Residents recorded terrifying footage of Russian military vehicles rolling through empty streets.
However, regional governor Oleh Sinegubov has said Ukraine is back “controlling the area fully”.
It comes as Vladimir Putin put Russia’s nuclear deterrent forces on high alert amid tensions with the West over the invasion of Ukraine.
Putin ordered the Russian defence minister and the chief of the military’s General Staff to put the nuclear deterrent forces in a “special regime of combat duty.”
The Ukrainian president has said Ukraine and Russian delegations will meet for negotiations at the Ukrainian-Belarusian border.