CHERNIHIV - A Russian missile attack has killed 16 people in the city of Chernihiv in northern Ukraine Wednesday, according to Ukrainian officials. More than 60 including three children were injured in the attack, which hit an eight-storey building in a densely populated area, the city’s mayor said.
Three missiles had struck close to the centre of the city, officials said.
The attack came hours after reports of a Ukrainian strike on a Russian military airfield in occupied Crimea.
Details have yet to be confirmed, although local social media channels shared video of an apparent fire on the airfield at Dzhankoy in northern Crimea. In Chernihiv, acting mayor Oleksandr Lomako said one building had suffered a direct hit from one of the Russian missiles and several floors had been damaged. The presidential office in Kyiv said another four high-rise buildings, a hospital, dozens of cars and a higher education institution were all damaged in the attack.
Video from the scene showed people getting off a trolleybus and diving for cover in the city. Emergency services searched the rubble for victims and officials appealed for the public to come forward to give blood.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said the Russian strike would not have happened “if Ukraine had received sufficient air defence equipment”, and he repeated an appeal to Western allies to provide support. Chernihiv is only 100km (60 miles) from the Russian border.
Parts of the Chernihiv region not far from the city were occupied for several weeks at the start of the 2022 invasion while Russia tried to capture Kyiv to the south. The city was under siege for more than a month. It was about 70% destroyed and hundreds of civilians were killed, the mayor said. A theatre in the city was also hit in a missile attack in August 2023 which killed seven people. In a US TV interview on Monday, the Ukrainian leader also blamed Ukraine’s declining air defences for Russia’s ability to destroy a key thermal power plant supplying Kyiv and other regions last week.
Mr Zelensky said 11 missiles were fired at the Trypillya plant and Ukrainian forces were only able to bring down seven of them. “Four destroyed Trypillya. Why? Because we had zero missiles. We ran out of all missiles,” he told PBS.
Ukraine’s power plants at the mercy of Russian missiles
Germany has appealed to EU, Nato and other countries with an initiative to shore up Ukraine’s air defences.
The German defence ministry said it was “aimed at activating and motivating a large number of countries to deliver something in the short term” as a result of a “change in the threat situation” in Ukraine.
