Russian missile attack kills 7 in Ukraine
Strike occurs while Zelenskyy visits NATO candidate Sweden
CHERNIHIV, Ukraine – A missile attack in the center of a northern Ukrainian city killed seven people and wounded scores of others on Saturday, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy traveled to Sweden, his first visit to the country since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year.
The dead in the daytime strike on the northern city of Chernihiv included a 6-year-old girl, while 12 children were among the 117 wounded, acting mayor Oleksandr Lomako said.
Zelenskyy condemned the attack, which he said hit buildings including a theater and a university.
“This is what a neighborhood with a terrorist state is, this is what we unite the whole world against. A Russian missile hit right in the center of the city, in our Chernihiv,” he wrote on Telegram. “A square, the polytechnic university, a theater. An ordinary Saturday, which Russia turned into a day of pain and loss.”
In Sweden, Zelenskyy met officials at Harpsund, the prime minister’s official summertime residence, about 75 miles west of Stockholm. He will also meet Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia at a palace in the area.
At a joint news conference, Zelenskyy and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson announced that the two countries agreed to strengthen cooperation on production and training and servicing of the Swedish CV-90 infantry fighting vehicles.
As part of the agreement, Zelenskyy said, Swedish CV-90 vehicles will begin production in Ukraine. He also stressed the importance of supplying Ukraine with modern aircraft.
“We do not have superiority in the air, and we do not have modern aircraft. In reality, the Swedish Gripen is the pride of your country, and I believe that the Prime Minister could share this pride with Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said, adding that “appropriate actions” would be taken in the following weeks to “open up the possibility of obtaining the appropriate aircraft.”
“I will also have negotiations with several other states tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. I am confident that we, together with our partners, will do everything and achieve the appropriate result in the sky so that the Russians do not have an advantage there,” he said.
Kristersson expressed his condolences to Zelenskyy for the attack in Chernihiv. He called the Russian missile strike an “act of brutality” which “only reinforces the need for us to stand with you in all your struggles.”
Sweden abandoned its longstanding policy of military nonalignment to support Ukraine with weapons and other aid in the war against Russia. The government says Sweden has provided 20 billion kronor (1.7 billion euros) in military support to Ukraine. Sweden also applied for NATO membership but is still waiting to join the alliance.
In Russia, President Vladimir Putin visited top military officials in the city of Rostov-on-Don near the Ukrainian border.
The Kremlin said that Putin listened to reports from Valery Gerasimov, the commander in charge of Moscow’s operations in Ukraine, and other top military brass at the headquarters of Russia’s Southern Military District.
The exact timings of his visit were not confirmed.