KYIV (AFP): Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Saturday that the Russian army had hit the central square of the northern city of Chernihiv including a theatre and a university, warning there are victims.
Chernihiv lies some 150 kilometres north of Kyiv towards the border with Belarus.
“A Russian missile hit right in the centre of the city, in our Chernihiv,” Zelensky said on Telegram.
“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.”
He posted a video from the scene that showed debris around a large Soviet-era building, with parked cars around it that were partially destroyed, with smashed roofs and windows blown out.
The governor of the Chernihiv region, Vyacheslav Chaus, earlier said that the centre of the city was probably struck with a ballistic missile and called on people to “stay in hiding places”.
Russian forces marched through Chernihiv when they invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, from several directions, including from Belarus.
They were then pushed back by Ukrainian forces.
Since Moscow’s forces were repelled from the area, northern Ukraine has been largely spared by the fierce fighting that has raged in the east and south.
Ukrainian defenses shot down 15 Russian drones during an overnight attack, Kyiv’s air force said Saturday.It said 17 Iranian-made Shahed drones were used in the aerial assault, and did not specify what happened to the other two.
Russian forces “attacked from the north with ‘Shahed-136/131’ attack UAVs. A total of 17 attack drones were launched from the Kursk region,” the Ukrainian force said on Telegram.
It added that air defenses were activated in “northern and central, as well as in the western regions.”
“15 enemy drones were destroyed by the forces and means of the Air Force in cooperation with the air defense systems of other components of the Defense Forces of Ukraine.”
Both sides in the conflict – which started in February 2022 – have recently reported regular drone incursions by air and sea, as Ukraine enacts a counteroffensive aimed at reclaiming Russian-held territory.
Moscow has ramped up attacks on Ukraine’s port infrastructure in the Black Sea and the Danube, since the scrapping of a deal that had allowed the safe export grain through the shipping hub.
On Friday, Russia said its forces had destroyed Ukrainian drones targeting Moscow and its Black Sea Fleet.
On the front lines, Ukrainian forces crossed into the Russian-occupied east bank of Kherson region and took positions there, the region’s Russian-installed governor confirmed.
On Friday, the United States told Denmark and the Netherlands they can hand Ukraine their F-16 fighter jets when the country’s pilots are trained to use them, a move welcomed as “great news” by Ukraine’s Minister of Defense Oleksii Reznikov.
