2024-04-18 09:44:30
According to the police, social infrastructure institutions, a university building, a hospital and 16 multi-storey residential buildings were damaged in the strike.
“The enemy launched three missile strikes almost at the same time [Čerņihivas] in the center of the city. Civilians have been killed and many injured. Rescuers are working now,” Vyacheslav Chaus, the governor of the Chernihiv region, said on social media. He later said on television that many high-rise buildings and civil infrastructure were damaged, as well as dozens of cars.
Oleksandr Lomako, the mayor of Chernihiv, said that the rockets hit a heavily populated area.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who has asked allies to send Ukraine more missiles to counter Russian airstrikes, said Ukraine did not have enough air defenses to intercept the three missiles that hit Chernihiv.
“There are still people under the ruins. The search and rescue operation continues,” Ukrainian Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko announced on social media.
The city of Chernihiv is located approximately 145 kilometers north of the capital Kyiv and had a population of approximately 285,000 before the war. When Russian tanks invaded Ukraine from the territory of Belarus in February 2022, the city was severely destroyed.
Ukraine has called on foreign allies to supply it with more advanced air defense systems to repel systematic Russian strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure.
Russia has stepped up attacks on Ukraine’s power grid in recent weeks, but Lomako said the damaged eight-story infrastructure building was not related to power generation.
Zelensky emphasized that the attack on Chernihiv would not have happened if “Ukraine had received sufficient anti-aircraft defense equipment and if the world’s determination to resist Russian terror had been sufficient.”
“Terror must be stopped. Anti-aircraft and anti-missile defense is what Ukraine needs right now,” Zelensky’s head of office Andriy Yermak said.
(Added paragraphs 1 and 2; Corrected headline)
2024-04-18 09:44:30