Al Jazeera’s Jonah Hull, reporting from the city of Lviv, in western Ukraine, said the reports of deadly Russian attacks on densely populated civilian areas were disturbing.

“There are lots of pictures [circulating on social media] showing explosions and suggestions that Grad rocket fire has been used, others that bombs have been dropped by the air, and there are lots of [videos showing] flashes that indicate secondary explosions, and the use of cluster munitions in amongst all of that,” said Hull.

Elsewhere, there was a relative lull in the capital Kyiv where supermarkets were reopened and residents allowed out of bomb shelters and homes for the first time since a curfew was imposed on Saturday.

Meanwhile, the strategic port city of Mariupol was “hanging on”, according to Oleksiy Arestovich, an adviser of Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Kharkiv resistance

The deaths in Kharkiv came a day after the Ukrainian troops repelled a significant Russian attack on the city on Sunday.

Videos posted on Ukrainian media and social networks showed Russian vehicles moving across the city of about 1.4 million people and a light vehicle burning on the street.

Later on Sunday, the regional governor, Oleh Sinegubov, wrote on Facebook that the Ukrainian forces regained full control over the country’s second-largest city.

“Control over Kharkiv is completely ours! The armed forces, the police, and the defence forces are working, and the city is being completely cleansed of the enemy,” he said.

A Russian armoured personnel carrier burns amid damaged and abandoned light utility vehicles in Kharkiv [File: Marienko Andrew/AP]

The exact death toll of Ukraine’s Russian invasion is unclear, but the UN human rights chief said 102 civilians have been killed and hundreds wounded – warning that figure was likely a vast undercount.