Seven people, including a 6-year-old child, were killed and 90 others injured when a Russian missile struck the main square of the historic northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv. The announcement was made on Saturday by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine.
The attack happened as residents of the town were heading to church for a religious holiday, Ukrainian authorities said, adding that 12 of the injured were children and 10 of them were police officers.
“A Russian missile hit the center of our Chernihiv, the square, the polytechnic university, and a theater,” President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who is on a working visit to Sweden, wrote on the Telegram social network.
“An ordinary Saturday, which Russia turned into a day of pain and loss,” he wrote further.
A short video accompanying Mr. Zelenskiy’s post showed debris strewn across a square in front of the theater, as well as parked cars, badly damaged.
Chernihiv is known as a city of centuries-old churches. It lies about 145 km north of the country’s capital, Kyiv. The Ministry of Interior said that as a result of the attack, the roof of the theater was destroyed.
Russia has attacked Ukrainian cities far from the front line with drones as part of what it calls a special military operation that began in February last year.
The Ukrainian air force announced earlier on Saturday that it had shot down 15 of 17 Iranian Shahed drones, part of an overnight strike by Moscow.
