Russians rain slaughter on religious holiday in strikes on northern city
Chernihiv has been targeted rarely since Moscow pulled back from northern Ukraine early in the war.
At least seven people have been killed and 144 others wounded in a Russian missile strike on the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv. The missile struck the centre of the city on a busy Saturday morning, ripping through a theatre and a university and leaving casualties across a large public square.
The wounded included 10 police officers and a dozen children, Ukraine’s Interior Ministry said. Victims were still being pulled from the rubble on Saturday afternoon.
The strike came during the Orthodox holiday of the Transfiguration of the Lord, as some attended morning church services in the city.
“It is heinous to attack the main square of a large city, in the morning, while people are out walking, some going to church to celebrate a religious day for many Ukrainians,” said Denise Brown, UN humanitarian co-ordinator for Ukraine. “I condemn this repeated pattern of Russian strikes on populated areas of Ukraine … Attacks directed against civilians or civilian objects are strictly prohibited under international humanitarian law.”
Chernihiv, about 145km north of Kyiv, was besieged by Russian troops early in the war, but has rarely been targeted since troops pulled back from northern Ukraine last northern spring.
“This is what we unite the whole world against,” Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on messaging platform Telegram. “A square, the polytechnic university, a theatre. An ordinary Saturday, which Russia turned into a day of pain and loss.”
There was no immediate official Russian reaction. But a drone exhibition that was part of a display of military technology being employed in the war was taking place in Chernihiv on Saturday. Russian state news agency RIA Novosti cited a person familiar with the situation claiming the missile strike had hit the exhibition at Chernihiv Regional Academic Ukrainian Music and Drama Theatre.
Mariya Berlinska, a local activist, said on Facebook she had helped organise the drone event in co-ordination with local authorities; the exact location, she said, had only been sent to registered participants earlier in the day.
“As soon as the air alert was announced the event stopped and participants were told several times about the need to take cover,” she wrote. “Unfortunately, some people still went outside … I personally went under cover a minute before the impact.”
The roof of the theatre was collapsed by the blast. Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said those in the theatre took shelter before the explosion. “The main victims of the incident were in vehicles or crossing the road, as well as returning from church,” the Interior Ministry posted on X. “Everyone who was in the drama theatre went down to the shelter in time.”
The attack follows a string of hits on civilian targets that were frequented by members of the military. Last week, two hotels – one in the eastern city of Pokrovsk and another in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia – were struck by Russian missiles.
The Wall Street Journal
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