CHERNIHIV: A Russian missile strike on Ukraine's northern city of Chernihiv killed seven people and wounded more than 100 on Saturday, in what the UN called a "heinous" attack hours after President Vladimir Putin met Moscow's top army commanders.
"It is heinous to attack the main square of a large city, in the morning, while people are out walking, some going to church to celebrate a religious day for many Ukrainians," said Denise Brown, the UN's humanitarian coordinator for Ukraine.
"I condemn this repeated pattern of Russian strikes on populated areas of Ukraine... Attacks directed against civilians or civilian objects are strictly prohibited under international humanitarian law," she added.
Chernihiv, 150 kilometres north of Kyiv towards Belarus, has been largely spared from major attacks since the first months of Russia's attack as fierce fighting rages in the east and south.
Saturday's strike came after Putin held talks with top Russian generals in a rare trip to operational hub Rostov-on-Don.
"As of 3:25 pm, 117 people were injured in the terrorist attack on the centre of Chernihiv, seven of them died," Oleksandr Lomako, Chernihiv's acting mayor, said on Telegram.
Viacheslav Chaus, head of the Chernihiv region's military administration, said on Telegram that a child was among the dead.
Zelensky said the attack hit a square that houses a "polytechnic university, a theatre".
"An ordinary Saturday, which Russia turned into a day of pain and loss," he said after his arrival in Sweden.
Reporters saw fire trucks outside the Taras Shevchenko Drama Theatre and Music Academy, which suffered some damage.
Hours earlier, the Kremlin said Putin had travelled to the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, Moscow's hub for its operations in Ukraine, to meet his top generals in a rare trip close to combat zones.
Moscow gave no details of when the meeting took place, but footage released by state media indicated it was at night.
Putin "listened to briefings by the Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov, commanders of directions and other senior officers of the group", the Kremlin said.
Kyiv said it had shot down more than a dozen Russian drones in an overnight attack.
And the Russian army said it had thwarted Ukrainian attacks on Crimea as well as attempted drone strikes on a military airfield in the northwestern Novgorod region, Moscow and its region. — AFP
Oman Observer is now on the WhatsApp channel. Click here
