A missile attack in the centre of a northern Ukrainian city killed seven people and wounded scores of others on Saturday, while Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy travelled to Sweden, his first visit to the country since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year.
Fatalities in the daytime strike on the northern city of Chernihiv included a six-year-old girl, while 15 children were among the 129 wounded, acting mayor Oleksandr Lomako said.
Mr Zelenskiy condemned the attack, which struck a central square in the historic city of Chernihiv. Many had been on their way to church to celebrate Apple Feast of the Saviour, a religious holiday, when the strike took place.
“This is what a neighbourhood with a terrorist state is, this is what we unite the whole world against,” Mr Zelenskiy wrote on Telegram. “A Russian missile hit right in the centre of the city, in our Chernihiv. A square, the polytechnic university, a theatre. An ordinary Saturday, which Russia turned into a day of pain and loss.”
A short video accompanying Zelenskiy’s post showed debris scattered across a square in front of the regional theatre, the Taras Shevchenko Chernihiv Regional Academic Music and Drama Theatre, where parked cars were heavily damaged. The video also briefly showed a body slouched inside a car.
Chernihiv is a city of leafy boulevards and centuries-old churches about 145km north of Kyiv. The interior ministry said the roof of the theatre had been destroyed in the strike.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s air force said the military had shot down 15 out of 17 Iranian-made Shahed drones launched by Russia in an overnight strike.
Russia’s defence ministry also said it shot down a Ukrainian-launched missile over the Crimean Peninsula overnight. There were no casualties and no damage, the ministry said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app.
In Sweden Mr Zelenskiy 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 Mr Zelenskiy and Swedish prime minister Ulf Kristersson announced that the two countries agreed to strengthen co-operation on production and training and servicing of the Swedish CV-90 infantry fighting vehicles.
As part of the agreement, Mr Zelenskiy said, Swedish CV-90 vehicles will begin production in Ukraine.
He also stressed the importance of supplying Ukraine with modern aircraft.
– Reuters, PA