New Delhi: Russia shelled the centre of north Ukrainian city Chernihiv on Saturday, killing seven people, including a six-year-old child and injuring 129 others, interior minister Igor Klymenko said, news agency Reuters reported. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky posted on messaging app Telegram, “Russia hit a square, the polytechnic university, a theatre. An ordinary Saturday, which Russia turned into a day of pain and loss. There are dead, there are wounded.”
Russian troops had marched through Chernihiv when they invaded Ukraine in February last year. However, after being repelled from the area by the Ukrainian forces, the city has been spared the fierce fighting that raged in the east and south since, AFP reported.
#UPDATE Russia on Saturday shelled the centre of the north Ukrainian city Chernihiv, spared from large-scale attacks since the first months of Moscow’s invasion last year, local authorities said. pic.twitter.com/QIzhg6qsUr
— AFP News Agency (@AFP) August 19, 2023
Chernihiv lies around 150 kilometre north of Kyiv toward the border with Moscow-allied Belarus.
“The enemy shelled the centre of Chernihiv. Preliminarily, a ballistic missile. Stay in hiding places. Details afterwards,” head of the Chernihiv region, Vyacheslav Chaus, posted on Telegram.
The incident comes a week after Russian shelling killed seven people, including two children, in southern Ukraine, AFP reported.
The two children and three others were killed in Shyroka Balka village, while two others were killed in Stanislav in Kherson, Interior Minister Igor Klymenko said on Telegram.
“A husband, wife and their 23-day-old daughter were killed by enemy artillery fire,” Klymenko wrote. Their 12-year-old son later succumbed to the injury, the minister added.
According to reports, the Russian shelling came a day after Moscow accused Ukraine of an attempted drone attack on the Kerch Bridge connecting mainland Russia with the Crimean Peninsula.
Although Ukraine neither confirmed nor denied its involvement in the attack, President Zelensky said that the bridge holds logistical significance as it is used as a military supply route for Moscow and is a legitimate target.
