At least 17 dead after missile strikes
THREE Russian missiles slammed into a central area of the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv yesterday, hitting an eight- storey apartment building and killing at least 17 people, local officials said.
At least 61 other people, including three children, were injured in the morning attack, the city’s acting mayor, Oleksandr Lomako, said.
Chernihiv lies some 90 miles north of the capital, Kyiv, near the border with Russia and Belarus, and has a population of around 250,000 people.
The latest Russian bombardment came as the war stretched into its third year and approached what could be a critical juncture as a lack of further military support from Ukraine’s Western partners increasingly leaves it at the mercy of the Kremlin’s bigger forces.
Through the winter months, Russia made no dramatic advance along the 620- mile frontline, focusing instead on attritional warfare. However, Ukraine’s shortage of artillery ammunition, troops and armoured vehicles has allowed the Russians to gradually push forward, military analysts say.
A crucial element for Ukraine is the hold- up in Washington of approval for an aid package that includes roughly $ 60 billion (£ 48.2bn) for Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Russia’s defence ministry said yesterday that a
Ukrainian drone was shot down over the Mordovia region, roughly 220 miles east of Moscow.
About an hour before that Mordovia attack, Russia’s civil aviation authority halted flights at airports in two of the country’s largest cities, Nizhny Novgorod and Tatarstan’s Kazan, because of safety concerns.