Boston Sunday Globe

Russian missile strikes heart of Ukrainian city

At least 7 dead, scores wounded in main square

- By Marc Santora

KYIV — A Russian missile slammed into the center of Chernihiv in northern Ukraine on Saturday, killing at least seven people and injuring more than 100, including 12 children, Ukrainian officials said.

The missile tore through the main square just before noon, as people were leaving church after celebratin­g a holy day, the Ukrainian Interior Ministry said.

“A Russian missile hit the heart of Chernihiv,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a statement. “A square, a university, and a theater. Russia turned an ordinary Saturday into a day of pain and loss.”

Ukrainian officials and emergency services released graphic videos of the initial blast in the attack and the devastatin­g aftermath. Victims could be seen sprawled in the square, surrounded by pools of blood. The Interior Ministry said a searchand-rescue operation was underway in the surroundin­g area.

The youngest known victim was a 6-year-old girl who died at a local hospital, officials said.

Zelensky said the deadly bombardmen­t should remind the world that it needs to stand united against “Russian terror,” adding: “For life to win, Russia must lose this war.”

The missile struck a theater that was hosting a gathering of drone manufactur­ers, the acting mayor of Chernihiv told the BBC.

The strike in Chernihiv, an elegant city that was battered by Russian forces during a siege in the first months of the war that ultimately failed, comes as Ukrainian forces are making incrementa­l gains against entrenched Russian forces in the south of the country in their slow-moving counteroff­ensive.

Those advances are being earned through bloody battles across fields littered with mines and backed by deeply dug-in Russian forces. At the same time, Kyiv has stepped up its assaults on Russian military targets behind the front lines, including some inside Russia.

On Saturday, a Ukrainian drone reached a Russian air base hundreds of miles from the Ukrainian border in the Novgorod region, sparking a fire and damaging one aircraft, the Russian Ministry of Defense said in a statement.

The Russian military said “a copter-type UAV,” or unmanned aerial vehicle, was used to target the base and claimed to have shot it down. But as a result of the attack, the ministry said, “a fire broke out in the aircraft parking lot” and one plane was damaged. There were no casualties, the ministry said.

The Ukrainian air force, in a statement on Telegram, celebrated the attack on the airfield, called Soltsy, home to Russian bombers that are frequently used to carry out strikes aimed at Ukrainian towns and cities.

The Kremlin has sought to play down the significan­ce of Ukrainian attacks inside Russia, seeking to maintain a sense of normalcy and to reassure Russians the war is going according to plan. President Vladimir Putin, for his part, has stepped up his efforts to project authority over a military campaign that has been marked by setbacks and internal divisions.

The Kremlin said Putin traveled to the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don to meet with military commanders, in his first publicized visit to the military hub since it was seized in June in a short-lived rebellion led by Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin.

Rostov-on-Don is home to the headquarte­rs of Russia’s Southern Military District, a strategic command center for Putin’s war in Ukraine. Prigozhin briefly took control of the headquarte­rs before his fighters headed toward Moscow.

The Kremlin did not say when Putin visited the city, where he met with the chief of the Russian military, General Valery Gerasimov. Sergei Shoigu, the Russian defense minister, and Gerasimov were the primary targets of criticism from Prigozhin before the uprising, which plunged the country into crisis.

The visit, which appeared to take place at night, comes as Putin continues an active schedule of public appearance­s and continues to signal that he is sticking by his top generals. At the same time, the general seen as closest to Prigozhin, Sergei Surovikin, has not been seen in public since the mutiny.

After abruptly ending the uprising, Wagner forces left Rostov-on-Don to the applause of some onlookers, suggesting that Prigozhin and his Wagner forces maintained at least some popular support there.

Since then, Prigozhin’s status has been shrouded in mystery. He has apparently been in Belarus and was recently still able to travel to Russia — last month, unverified images appeared to show him meeting with African leaders in St. Petersburg during a summit hosted by Putin. But his extensive media holdings, including a troll farm that figured prominentl­y in Russia’s interferen­ce in the US presidenti­al election in 2016, have largely been taken apart and state media has depicted him as a thug. He has also toned down his criticism of Russia’s top military leaders.

In other developmen­ts:

▪ Zelensky arrived Saturday in Sweden, where he said in a statement that he would continue to work on bilateral cooperatio­n, “in particular in the defense industry, the European integratio­n of Ukraine, and common security in the Euro-Atlantic space.”

▪ In his summit with the leaders of Japan and South Korea at Camp David, President Biden commended Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan for his country’s support of Ukraine. “Imagine if we had done nothing?” the president said. If the world had not come to Kyiv’s aid, Biden added, hinting at US officials’ concerns about China taking military action against Taiwan, “What signal would that send to China?”

▪ The head of Ukraine’s security services, Vasyl Malyuk, revealed details of the country’s first successful attack on the only bridge linking occupied Crimea with Russia, saying that its operatives loaded a truck with 21 tons of explosives wrapped in packing film to detonate the vehicle in the middle of the bridge in October. Two lanes of the bridge collapsed and five people were killed.

 ?? PAULA BRONSTEIN/GETTY IMAGES ?? A missile struck the Chernihiv Regional Academic Ukrainian Music and Drama Theater late Saturday morning.
PAULA BRONSTEIN/GETTY IMAGES A missile struck the Chernihiv Regional Academic Ukrainian Music and Drama Theater late Saturday morning.

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