A son wept over the body of his father in the middle of the wreckage of a missile attack in a residential district in the eastern Ukrainian town of Chuhuiv in the Kharkiv region as the country woke up on Thursday to an invasion ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“I told him to leave,” the man in his 30s said, sobbing next to the twisted ruins of a car.

Nearby, a woman screamed curses into the wintry sky.

A missile crater, 4-5 metres (13-16 feet) wide, was scoured into the earth between two devastated five-floor residential buildings.

Firefighters battled to extinguish the blaze in the remnants.

Teenager Anastasia clutched her grey cat as she watched her grandfather in a wheelchair being loaded onto a minibus waiting to rush them to a nearby village.

Several other buildings on the street were damaged badly, their windows shattered and doorframes hanging in the frigid morning air.

It was among the first reported damage after Russia launched the invasion, with explosions heard in several locations across the country.

A policeman said the casualties from the bombardment were still being “evaluated”.