Ukraine: At least 51 dead and more than 200 injured in Russian strike on Poltava

At least 51 people were killed and more than 200 injured Tuesday in a Russian missile strike on the central Ukrainian city of Poltava, which partially destroyed a military institute, according to a new official toll that is likely to rise further.

“As of 18:00 (15:00 GMT), 51 people had been killed and more than 200 injured in the attack,” the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office said. Regional governor Filip Pronin added that “up to 18 people could be under the rubble.”

Popular bloggers and officials have harshly criticized the Ukrainian military command after the particularly deadly attack, which they said targeted a group of soldiers gathered for an outdoor ceremony

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said two ballistic missiles had hit “an educational institution and a nearby hospital” in Poltava.

“One of the buildings of the Institute of Communications was partially destroyed. People were found under the rubble,” he said in a video message, referring to the institution founded in the 1960s and which trains specialists in military telecommunications.

He himself had given an initial toll of at least 41 dead and more than 180 injured.

Ukraine: Positions of military forces © AFP – Valentin RAKOVSKY, Sophie RAMIS, Cléa PECULIER

According to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, the strike took place very quickly after the air raid alert was triggered. The missiles “caught people evacuating to the underground shelter.”

“Thanks to the coordinated work of rescuers and doctors, 25 people were rescued, eleven of whom were able to be freed from the rubble. Rescuers are currently continuing their work,” the ministry added.

The attack took place in the morning on Poltava, a city located about 300 kilometers east of kyiv and which had some 300,000 inhabitants before the Russian invasion.

An AFP journalist on the scene saw several ambulances heading towards the site shortly after the strike. Local media outlets broadcast appeals for people to donate blood.

Images posted on social media showed a multi-story building gutted and rescue workers working amid rubble.

– “Tragedies are repeating themselves” –

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The bombing was condemned by British Foreign Minister David Lammy, who called it “a sickening act of aggression in (Vladimir) Putin's heinous and illegal war in Ukraine.”

“Putin's brutality knows no bounds,” said his German counterpart Annalena Baerbock.

The strike also sparked anger among Ukrainian military bloggers, who, like in Russia, have some influence due to the war.

According to some of them, the Russian military was aiming for an official military ceremony in the open air, meaning a large concentration of soldiers made them an easy target.

“Poltava… How come so many people were gathered in such a facility ?,” asked blogger Sergei Naumovitch, followed by more than 135,000 people on Facebook.

MP Mariana Bezougla, a member of the Parliament's Defense Committee and a strong critic of the Ukrainian military command, regretted on Telegram that no high-ranking officer had been punished for endangering groups of soldiers during similar incidents in the past.

Ukraine: Russian forces advance toward Pokrovsk © AFP – Lise KIENNEMANN, Valentina BRESCHI, Nalini LEPETIT-CHELLA

“Tragedies repeat themselves. When will it stop ?”, she wrote.

The Defense Ministry assured that no open-air ceremony was taking place at the time of the tragedy.

The Ukrainian president said he had ordered “a full and rapid investigation” into the circumstances that led to the Russian attack.

He also promised to hold Russia “responsible” and once again called on Kiev's Western allies to urgently deliver more air defense systems and to allow Ukraine to reach deep into Russian territory with the long-range missiles it has been supplied with.

Several Western countries, including the United States, have so far refused to give the green light to such bombings beyond the border regions for fear of an escalation with Moscow.

The Russian military command had also been strongly criticized on several occasions since the beginning of the war after deadly Ukrainian strikes targeting concentrations of soldiers.

Russian military bloggers on Tuesday released aerial images taken by a drone that appear to correspond to the institute building in Poltava.

Last week, the Ukrainian army command had already found itself under pressure due to the crash of an F-16 fighter jet, a valuable piece of military equipment recently delivered to kyiv after more than two years of waiting, and the death of its pilot, trained in the United States.

Mr. Zelensky then dismissed the commander of the air force, Mykola Oleshchuk.

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