Strike on flat kills at least 17 as Ukraine requests support

At least 17 people have been killed after three Russian missiles slammed into a busy area of the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv as Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky pleaded for more air defences to protect civilians.

The three explosions ripped through an eight-floor apartment building just after 9am local time (6am GMT) yesterday, according to the city’s acting mayor Oleksandr Lomako. Footage showed emergency service workers frantically trying to rescue civilians buried under the rubble of the destroyed building.

At least 60 people, including three children, were wounded in the morning attack, Ukrainian emergency services said. Chernihiv lies about 90 miles north of the capital, Kyiv, near the border with Russia and Belarus, and has a population of around 250,000.

Ukraine’s interior minister Ihor Klymenko said a 25-year-old police lieutenant and a woman in a nearby house on sick leave were among those killed.

Following a recent Russian double-tap strike in Kharkiv, northeast Ukraine, during which a second missile hit emergency workers after they rushed to the scene of the initial explosion, Mr Klymenko urged local Chernihiv residents to be careful about publishing information regarding the attack. “Do not endanger the emergency workers who are trying to save the victims,” he said.