Ukraine: 17 killed in Russian attack on northern city

At least 17 people were killed and 78 injured in three Russian strikes on Wednesday in Chernihiv, a large city in northern Ukraine, and President Volodymyr Zelensky again blamed a lack of aid from the West.

• Read more: Ukraine: 4 people were killed in the blast in the eastern part

• Read more: The attacks on the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant raise fears of a turning point in the war

Mr. Zelensky, in an interview with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, warned that “immediate measures to strengthen anti-aircraft defenses” were needed after the attack, but in recent weeks targeted the Ukrainian electricity grid.

According to the latest report of the strike on Chernihiv, 17 people were killed and 78 injured, of whom 40 were hospitalized, its acting mayor Oleksandr Lomako said in a telegram.

According to officials, social infrastructure, an educational institute, a hospital and twenty residential buildings were damaged. In official pictures, pools of blood could be seen at the scene of the tragedy.

Olga Samoylenko, who lives in Cherniguiv, told AFP how she and her children took refuge on the porch of their building when the first missile exploded.

AFP

“Our neighbors were already there. We started shouting for everyone to get down on the ground. That's what they did. There were two more explosions. Then we ran to the parking lot,” said the 33-year-old woman.

AFP journalists at the site saw a body being pulled from the rubble and the worst-hit building, an eight-story hotel, was completely gutted.

Scores of ambulances and fire engines were seen at the scene, and tents were set up by police and rescue workers. Windshields of cars parked near the quake were destroyed.

AFP

Mr. Zelensky insisted, undoubtedly against this historic city, sixty kilometers from the border with Belarus, Russia's ally, and one hundred kilometers north of Kiev.

“This would not have happened if Ukraine had enough air defense equipment and if the world's commitment to countering Russian terrorism was sufficient,” the Ukrainian president stressed in a telegram.

AFP

Ukrainian despair

With Western aid, particularly American, running out of steam, Ukraine faces growing shortages to intercept these devices.

AFP

It is actively urging its partners to provide more weapons and air defense systems.

The Allies' reluctance after this weekend's Iranian airstrikes on Israel was particularly frustrating to Guy, especially because of Western military support that was successfully repelled.

“Three days ago, in the Middle East, we saw how there is reliable protection of human lives against missiles,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba wrote bitterly on Facebook on Wednesday.

AFP

In Chernihiv, at 9:03 a.m. local time (07:03 GMT), three explosions occurred almost in the city center, according to local authorities.

Founded over 1,000 years ago, the city had a population of around 300,000 before the Russian invasion in February 2024. It was heavily bombed by the Russian military at the start of the offensive and has been occupied for weeks.

Attack on Russian base in Crimea

On the Russian side, military bloggers and media outlets reported a Tuesday-to-Wednesday overnight Ukrainian strike on a Russian military base in Dzhankoy on the Ukrainian Crimean peninsula, annexed by Moscow in 2014.

Videos of the attack posted on social media showed impressive explosions in the middle of the night.

According to a Telegram account, Rybar, which is close to the Russian military and has a following of more than a million people, may have been hit by 12 US-supplied ATACMS tactical missiles to Kyiv, damaging equipment and a building.

Kiev and Moscow have yet to officially comment.

Finally, providing a new minimum estimate of Russian losses, the independent Russian website Mediazona and the BBC's Russian service said that more than 50,000 Russian soldiers had been killed since the start, based on public information. Ukraine.

The Russian side did not report its losses. For his part, Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged the deaths of 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers in February.