Putin’s forces kill seven in Chernihiv strike as drone crashes in Kursk- live

Seven people including a 6-year-old child were killed and 90 wounded when a Russian missile struck a central square in the historic northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv, the interior ministry said on Saturday.

People had been on their way to church to celebrate a religious holiday when the strike took place, the ministry said, adding 12 of the wounded were children and 10 were police officers.

“A Russian missile hit right in the centre of the city, in our Chernihiv.

A square, the polytechnic university, a theatre,” President Volodymyr Zelensky, who was on a working visit to Sweden, posted on Telegram.

“An ordinary Saturday, which Russia turned into a day of pain and loss,” he added.

A Ukrainian drone crashed into the rooftop of a railway station in the Russian city of Kursk, injuring five people and setting off a fire, the TASS news agency said on Sunday, citing regional governor Roman Starovoit.

The ministry said in its intelligence report that “despite the consistent pressures of war, Ukrainian efforts to build up fuel stockpiles will likely be successful in ensuring that it will have sufficient fuel reserves during the approaching winter period.”

It also noted that “Ukraine has been effective in mobilising its mining sector to maintain output, ensuring a continuous supply of coal is available for thermal power and heating plants in the winter, with substantial gas stocks providing a further reserve”.

The UN condemned Russia for carrying out the “heinous” missile strike in the historic northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv.

“It is heinous to attack the main square of a large city, in the morning, while people are out walking, some going to the 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, causing deaths, massive destruction and soaring humanitarian needs.

“Attacks directed against civilians or civilian objects are strictly prohibited under international humanitarian law. It must stop.”

Training had begun for Ukrainians to operate US F16 fighter jets but it would take at least six months and possibly longer, defence minister Oleksiy Reznikov, two days after a US official said F16s would be transferred to Ukraine once its pilots were trained.

Mr Reznikov said in a TV interview that six months of training was considered the minimum for pilots, but it was not yet known how long it would take to train engineers and mechanics.

Ukraine wants sophisticated US-made warplanes so it can counter the air superiority of Russia, whose forces invaded the country in February 2022.

“Therefore, to build reasonable expectations, set a minimum of six months in your mind, but do not be disappointed if it is longer,” he told Kanal 24 anchor Andriana Kucher, who shared the interview on her YouTube channel.

A US official said on Thursday that Washington had approved sending F16s to Ukraine from Denmark and the Netherlands to defend against Russia as soon as pilot training was completed.

Mr Reznikov said he would not give details on where and when the training was taking place.

The number of people injured from Russia’s missile strike in the historic northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv has risen to 144.

Seven people including a 6-year-old girl and 15 children were left dead in the missile strike that tore into the roof of theatres and buildings, sparked a fire and damaged infrastructure.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said that of the 144 people injured, 15 were children, and named the girl killed as Sofia.

Fifteen others were police officers, interior minister Ihor Klymenko said on Telegram. He said most of the victims were in vehicles, crossing the road, or returning from church.

The deadly strike coincided with the Orthodox holiday of the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord.

A Ukrainian drone crashed into the rooftop of a railway station in Kursk, the central Russian city.

Five people were injured and the attack set off a fire at the railway station, Kursk region governor Roman Starovoit said, according to Tass.

“Ukrainian drone attack in Kursk. According to preliminary information, it crashed into the roof of the railway station building, setting off a fire on the rooftop. Five people were slightly injured by shards of glass,” he said on Telegram.

The city is located 150kms from the border with Ukraine.

The number of troops killed or wounded in Ukraine since Russia’s invasion is approaching 500,000, according to US officials, in an estimate not accounting for civilian deaths.

Russia’s military casualties are approaching 300,000, including up to 120,000 deaths, while Ukraine has lost 70,000 troops, with between 100,000 and 120,000 injured, according to Washington officials quoted by the New York Times.

In addition, Ukraine has suffered at least 26,384 civilian casualties since the beginning of the invasion on 24 February, 2022.

This is according to the latest estimates from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and includes 9,444 killed and 16,940 injured.

Read the full report below.

The newfound presence of Wagner mercenaries in Belarus, exiled from Russia after their mutinous march on Moscow, has fuelled fresh anxieties in Ukraine and on Nato’s eastern flank.

Belarus’s neighbours have moved to a heightened state of alert since dictator Alexander Lukashenko appeared to broker a last-minute deal with the Kremlin to defuse the short-lived mutiny on 23 June and host Wagner troops on Belarusian soil.

During a recent meeting at the strategically important Suwalki Gap, a sparsely populated land corridor near their countries’ borders with Belarus and Russia’s enclave of Kaliningrad, Lithuania’s president Gitanas Nauseda warned that north of 4,000 mercenaries were believed to be in Belarus, while Poland’s premier Mateusz Morawiecki branded them “extremely dangerous”.

Read the full report by Andy Gregory below.

Alexander Khodakovsky, chief of the pro-Russian Vostok Battalion of the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic, wrote a lengthy Telegram post.

He said his troops “cannot win” against Ukraine and suggested freezing the current front line.

According to a translation by the Kyiv Post, he said: “Can we bring down Ukraine militarily? Now and in the near future, no.

“When I talk to myself about our destiny in this war, I mean that we will not crawl forward, like the Ukrainians, turning everything into destroyed Bakhmuts in our path. And, I do not foresee the easy occupation of cities.”