Russian Missile Strike Kills Seven In Ukraine

Seven people, including a six-year-old child, were killed when a Russian missile struck a theatre in the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv, officials said.

Fifteen children were among 129 people wounded, and at least 25 people were in hospital the interior ministry said.

Among the victims were people who had been celebrating an Orthodox holiday at church, the ministry said.

“A Russian missile hit right in the centre of the city, in our Chernihiv. A square, the polytechnic university, a theatre,” President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who was on a working visit to Sweden,

Posted on Telegram.

“An ordinary Saturday, which Russia turned into a day of pain and loss,” he added.

Meanwhile, a short video accompanying Zelenskiy’s post showed debris scattered across a square in front of the regional drama theatre, where parked cars were heavily damaged. The video also briefly showed a body slumped inside a car.

The theatre was hosting a gathering of drone manufacturers, Oleksandr Lomako, acting mayor of Chernihiv, said.

He called the attack “a terrorist attack” and a “war crime.”

Chernihiv is located around 50km from the border with Belarus. It was besieged by Russia at the beginning of the invasion.

“I understand that their aim was a military event taking place in the building of the drama theatre and that it was their target,” he said.

“But it is clear that the Russians launching those missiles and those giving them orders in the middle of the day to the civilian city realised that the victims will be primarily civilians.

“There is no other way to interpret it than a war crime against civilians, yet another Russian war crime,” he added.

Report says three days of mourning have been announced in the city.

Moscow is yet to comment.

Elsewhere, Russia has claimed that a Ukrainian drone hit a military airfield in the northwest Novgorod region, causing a fire that was quickly put out.

One plane was damaged but no casualties have been reported, it added.

Ukraine has not commented on the alleged drone attack.

Meanwhile, Kyiv’s air force said the Ukrainian military had shot down 15 out of 17 Iranian-made Shahed drones launched by Moscow in an overnight strike.

BBC/Christopher Ojilere