War in Ukraine, day 784 | Thirteen dead in Russian strike on Cherniguiv

(Cherniguiv) At least 13 people were killed and more than 60 injured in a triple Russian strike on Wednesday in Cherniguiv, a large city in northern Ukraine, with President Volodymyr Zelensky once again blaming the lack of aid from the West.

“At this stage, 61 people, including two children, have been injured. 13 people were killed,” said the head of the city’s military administration Dmytro Bryjynsky.

A toll which risks increasing, “people are probably still trapped under the rubble of the partially destroyed building”, commented the State Service for Emergency Situations.

Three people were able to be taken out of the rubble and the rescue operation is continuing, according to the same source.

President Zelensky stressed that Ukraine did not have enough air defenses to prevent this attack, undoubtedly the deadliest against this historic city located about sixty kilometers from the border with Belarus, Russia’s ally, and about a hundred kilometers north of Kyiv.

“This would not have happened if Ukraine had received enough air defense equipment and if the world’s determination to resist Russian terror had been sufficient,” the Ukrainian leader insisted on Telegram.

Because Russia bombards Ukrainian cities daily with explosive missiles and drones, particularly its energy infrastructure.

Faced with Western aid, particularly American aid, which is running out of steam, Ukraine is experiencing a growing lack of means to intercept these devices.

It is desperately urging its partners to deliver more weapons and air defense systems.

The allies’ reluctance has particularly frustrated Kyiv after a massive Iranian air attack on Israel this weekend was successfully repelled, notably thanks to Western military support, while a crucial package of American aid to Ukraine has been blocked for months in Congress.

President Zelensky cited the example of a large thermal power station near Kyiv, completely destroyed by Russian missiles on April 11 due, he said, to a lack of ammunition for the anti-aircraft defense supposed to cover it.

“There were 11 missiles flying. We destroyed seven of them. The remaining four destroyed the Trypillia power plant. For what ? Because we had zero rockets. We were running out of rockets to protect Trypillia,” he said in an interview published Tuesday.

Russian base attacked in Crimea

In Cherniguiv, “three explosions occurred” at 9:03 a.m. local time (3:03 a.m. Eastern time), the mayor said earlier in the day on television. It was a “direct strike on a social infrastructure building”.

Ukraine’s Health Ministry said a health facility was damaged. Six people were hospitalized, he added on Telegram.

The governor of the Cherniguiv region said the attack had hit “almost” the city center.

Cherniguiv, one of the oldest cities in Ukraine, founded more than 1000 years ago, had almost 300,000 inhabitants before the Russian invasion in February 2024. It was heavily bombed by the Russian army at the start of this offensive. and part of the region had been occupied for several weeks.

On the Russian side, elsewhere, military bloggers and Russian media have reported a Ukrainian strike during the night from Tuesday to Wednesday on the Russian military base of Djankoi, in the Ukrainian Crimean peninsula annexed by Moscow in 2014.

Alleged videos of the attack, posted on social media, show impressive explosions in the middle of the night.

According to the Rybar Telegram account, close to the Russian army and followed by hundreds of thousands of people, 12 ATACMS tactical missiles delivered to Kyiv by the United States may have hit the target, damaging equipment and a building. “With a high probability”, they were fired from the Ukrainian region of Kherson.

Kyiv and Moscow have not yet officially commented.

Finally, providing a new minimum estimate of Russian losses, the independent Russian site Mediazona and the BBC’s Russian service said they had identified by name, based on public information, more than 50,000 Russian soldiers killed since the start of the war. invasion of Ukraine two years ago.

The Russian side does not communicate its losses. For his part, the Ukrainian president admitted in February the deaths of 31,000 soldiers.