At least 52 people were killed and over 270 more were injured in a Russian missile strike on the central Ukrainian city of Poltava on Tuesday, according to Ukraine’s public broadcaster Suspilne.
The city was struck with by two ballistic missiles targeting an educational facility and a neighbouring hospital, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on Tuesday, adding that the Poltava Higher Military Command School of Communications had been partially destroyed in the attack.
The Ukrainian Defence Ministry said that the interval between the two missiles had been “so short that it caught people in the middle of evacuating to the bomb shelter”, adding that rescuers were continuing to work at site, as many people are feared to be trapped under the rubble.
Citing Vladimir Rogov, a Russian-appointed official in the occupied part of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, Russian state news agency TASS reported on Tuesday that the attack had targeted an Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) training centre in Poltava.
Rogov claimed in a Telegram post that the strike happened while “over 1,500” AFU soldiers lined up in front of the building, adding that the AFU losses were “in the hundreds”.
“The Russian scum will surely pay for this strike. We continue to urge everyone in the world who has the power to stop this terror: Ukraine needs air defence systems and missiles now,” Zelensky said on Telegram. “Every day of delay, unfortunately, means more lost lives,” he added.
The BBC Ukrainian Service reported that the strike had targeted a training centre for communications troops that was located on the grounds of the disbanded Poltava Higher Military Command School of Communications.
Ukrainian military journalist Yuriy Butusov questioned the wisdom of allowing mass gatherings of Ukrainian officers in the open. “Not a single commander has been punished for the attacks on the barracks in Yavoriv, Mykolaiv, and Desna, where there were mass casualties,” he wrote, adding that “an enemy agent” likely found out about the mass gathering in Poltava and alerted the Russian military.