Ukrainians celebrate small victories in Kharkiv 2:07
Kyiv, Ukraine (CNN) --
Kharkiv, Ukraine's second largest city, is believed to have been one of the first strategic targets of the invading Russian army.
Home to 1.4 million people, it is located less than 32 kilometers from the Russian border, in northeastern Ukraine.
Russian troops closed in shortly after the invasion began last Thursday, but for three days Ukrainian forces held off the Russians.
Russia-Ukraine War: Breaking News, Invasion Analysis and News
Then on Sunday, Russian troops entered the city according to the region's governor, Oleh Synehubov.
What happened next offers clues to the fierce resistance Russian soldiers are facing in Ukraine's towns and cities, and why they still haven't advanced as fast as experts initially feared they would.
"The Armed Forces of Ukraine are eliminating the enemy," Synehubov assured Kharkiv residents that day.
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The videos uploaded to social networks give a rare glimpse of the clashes in the streets of the city.
A sequence of videos posted on social media shows a Russian unit attempting to advance on a major airfield and weapons factory northeast of Kharkiv.
The airfield, within the Kharkiv State Aircraft Manufacturing Company, is small — just one runway — but could be a useful military position for the Russians.
CNN has geolocated and verified the authenticity of the videos.
The first video, taken by a resident, shows a convoy of Russian troops surrounding military vehicles, creeping along a road that ends near the airfield.
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"There are two [military vehicles] as far as I can see," someone says in the video.
"A third is creeping up with infantry with automatic weapons, getting ready."
Suddenly, shots are heard and seen.
A Russian soldier quickly kneels and fires a shoulder-launched rocket into the area where the shots appear to be coming from.
A second video, taken after the shooting, shows the military vehicles backing up in an apparent retreat.
Russian troops are seen huddled behind their vehicles.
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A Reuters journalist who went to the scene after the shooting recorded video showing one of the Russian vehicles from the military convoy abandoned and a significant amount of blood staining the snow on the ground nearby.
The Reuters journalist spoke to a resident, identified as Yevgeniy, who told him that at least one Russian soldier had been killed there.
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"After we killed this one, the others fled," Yevgeniy told Reuters, pointing to a bloodstain in the snow.
He tells the reporter that there were between 12 and 15 people in the group.
"They will not take Kharkiv," he insists.
"They've run back to where they came from. They don't have good navigation, you see. Nothing works for them. They came and hid behind houses."
The troops' efforts to withdraw appear to have been halted by another attack.
A convoy of vehicles, the same type as those seen in the previous videos, is seen on fire in another video.
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"This is how we welcome the fucking Russian Army," someone is heard shouting in the video.
"Come here and blindfold him. And this will happen to anyone who comes to us here on Kharkiv soil."
It is not possible to say for sure that the Russian trucks seen on fire are the same ones that were filmed trying to reach the airport, but they are in the same place, of the same type and have the same markings.
Another video apparently taken later at the site of the abandoned military convoy — the vehicles are no longer on fire — shows Ukrainian troops clashing.
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In the midst of the firefight, a Ukrainian soldier steps out of the wall and is seen firing a shoulder-wielding missile.
Viewing the video, retired Gen. Mark Hertling, a CNN national security and military analyst, said the Ukrainian unit was equipped with rocket-propelled grenades.
"You see that force, that little squad of about 10 guys, the guy that's furthest from us is repeatedly firing rocket-propelled grenades, he's fired by my count five of them, he's handing the launcher to another guy, they're reloading and he's ready to shoot again," he said.
“And everyone else, look at the cool, calm, collected approach of these soldiers under fire, they are not afraid, they are ready to kick ass,” he added.
Later, another video shows Ukrainian troops surrounding the convoy, appearing to rummage through abandoned vehicles.
Sporadic gunfire is heard and some Ukrainian forces move along a wall in the background.
"Slava Ukraini," someone says in the video ("glory to Ukraine").
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A quick answer
But on Monday, Russian troops returned to Kharkiv's northeastern suburbs and renewed their attack on the city.
Multiple social media videos geolocated by CNN show rockets exploding very close in a residential area of the Saltivka neighborhood, near a supermarket.
One showed a rocket booster lodged in the street pavement, as civilians looked on.
"It is more hellish in Kharkiv today than yesterday," Ukraine's Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova said in a Facebook post.
Bolivian resident of Kyiv: They are killing civilians, families, children and women
According to the Kharkiv City Council, the latest bombing left a civilian woman dead and 31 people, 15 soldiers and 16 civilians injured.
In recent days, the city council registered seven deaths, two soldiers and five civilians, and 44 wounded, including 20 soldiers.
"Kharkiv has just been the target of a massive shelling of Grad! Dozens of victims," Anton Gerashchenko, adviser to the head of Ukraine's Interior Ministry, said on Monday, describing the situation there as "a nightmare."
Russia maintains that it does not attack civilians.
Russian invasion of Ukraine
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