Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov told The Guardian.
According to him, Russia has changed its tactics to try to destroy the city's energy system and terrorize its 1.3 million residents by shelling residential areas.
Terekhov emphasized that the $60 billion US military aid package, which is currently stalled in Congress, is "crucial for us."
"We need this support to prevent Kharkiv from becoming the second Aleppo," Terekhov said, referring to the Syrian city that was heavily bombed by Russian and Syrian government forces 10 years ago.
After three years of intense bombardment, Aleppo has become a symbol of the Bashar al-Assad regime's crackdown on the political opposition. The use of excessive and indiscriminate military force against people, 90 percent of whom were civilians, was recorded there. Currently, experts are collecting evidence of mass executions, the use of cluster bombs and chemical weapons against civilians in Aleppo.