February 2022 Kharkiv cluster bombing

On February 28, 2022, during the battle of Kharkiv in the early stages of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Russian Armed Forces fired rockets carrying cluster munitions into three separate residential areas of the city at approximately 10:00 a.m. local time. The strikes killed nine civilians and wounded 37 others. Additional explosions in the city were recorded as late as 2:23 p.m. the same day.

The affected sites included residential buildings and a playground, spread across Kharkiv's Industrialnyi and Shevchenkivskyi districts. Among those killed were four people who were struck while leaving a bomb shelter to obtain water and buy supplies during a break between curfew hours. A family of five — two parents and three children — died after their car caught fire during the attack.

Human Rights Watch investigated the strikes and concluded that Russian forces used Smerch rockets carrying cluster munitions, a weapon type that disperses numerous submunitions, or bomblets, over a wide area. Cluster munitions are banned under an international treaty due to the widespread and indiscriminate harm they can cause to civilians. Human Rights Watch noted that no military targets were located within 400 meters of the strike sites, and stated that the indiscriminate use of these weapons in a densely populated area could constitute a possible war crime.

Amnesty International conducted a separate investigation and found evidence that Russian forces had repeatedly used 9N210/9N235 cluster munitions, as well as scatterable mines, in the area. Both weapon types are subject to international bans — cluster munitions under the Convention on Cluster Munitions and scatterable mines under the Ottawa Treaty — because of their indiscriminate effects on civilian populations.

As of the available reporting, no individuals have been named as charged or convicted in connection with this specific attack. The documented findings from Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International describe the incident as a potential violation of international humanitarian law due to the choice and deployment of weaponry in a civilian residential area, rather than establishing individual criminal liability.

This incident is one of several cluster munition attacks documented in Kharkiv during this period, alongside similarly reported strikes in March and April 2022.