Ukraine-Russia war – live: Putin’s forces launch missile strike on Cherniv, killing 7 and injuring 90

Seven people, including a six-year-old child, were killed and 90 injured when a Russian missile struck a central square in the historic northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv, the Interior Ministry said on Saturday.

People were on their way to church to celebrate a religious holiday when the strike took place, the ministry said. Twelve of the injured were children and ten were police officers.

“A Russian rocket fell in the middle of the city, in our Chernihiv.

“A square, the Polytechnic University, a theatre,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who was in Sweden on a working visit, posted on Telegram.

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

As reported on Saturday, the naval forces of Russia and China have completed joint patrol exercises in the Pacific.

The three-week exercises included more than 50 training and combat exercises, citing the Russian Pacific Fleet, the Interfax news agency said.

The Russian ships are currently crossing the East China Sea en route to the Chinese port of Qingdao, it said.

Five people died and 37 were injured, including eleven children, in a Russian rocket attack on the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv, the interior ministry said on Saturday.

People were on their way to church to celebrate a religious holiday when a central square in the city was hit, the ministry said.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who was in Sweden on a working visit, said in a message published on Telegram: “A Russian missile fell in the middle of the city, in our Chernihiv. A square, the Polytechnic University, a theatre.”

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

A video accompanying Zelenskyi’s post showed debris strewn in a square in front of the regional theater, where parked cars were severely damaged.

The newfound presence of Wagner mercenaries in Belarus, driven out of Russia after their mutinous march on Moscow, has fueled new fears in Ukraine and on NATO’s eastern flank.

Belarus’ neighbors have been on heightened alert since dictator Alexander Lukashenko apparently brokered a last-minute deal with the Kremlin to defuse the short-lived June 23 mutiny and station Wagner troops on Belarusian soil.

During a recent meeting at the strategically important Suwalki Gap, a sparsely populated land corridor near his country’s borders with Belarus and the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, Lithuania’s President Gitanas Nauseda warned that there are believed to be more than 4,000 mercenaries in Belarus, while Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki described them as “extremely dangerous”.

Read more from Andy Gregory Here:

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday that people were killed and injured after a Russian missile struck a central square in the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv.

“A Russian missile fell in the middle of the city, in our Chernihiv. A square, the Polytechnic University, a theater,” he posted on Telegram along with footage of the episodes.

“An ordinary Saturday that Russia turned into a day of pain and loss. There are dead, there are wounded.” Zelenskyj did not provide any information on the number of victims.

Separate Russian Courts on Friday ordered the dissolution of a human rights organization that has preserved the legacy of Nobel Peace Prize winner Andrei Sakharov and the arrest of a prominent election observer are the latest steps in a sweeping crackdown on dissidents.

Sakharov, who died in 1989, was a key figure in the development of the Soviet Union’s hydrogen bomb program but later became known for his commitment to promoting human rights and freedom of conscience.

He received the Nobel Prize in 1975 but was not allowed to travel to Norway to receive it. In 1980 he was sent into internal exile, which lasted six years.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy will visit Sweden today and meet with the country’s Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson.

The President of Ukraine will also meet with the Swedish royal family and other officials to thank them for supporting his country during the Russian invasion.

“Our main task is to strengthen Ukrainian warriors on the ground and in the air, develop bilateral cooperation, especially in the defense industry, European integration of Ukraine and common security in the Euro-Atlantic space,” he wrote in a telegram post, which his announced arrival.

The number of soldiers killed or wounded since the Russian invasion of Ukraine is nearing 500,000, according to US officials, not counting civilian deaths.

Russia’s military losses are nearing 300,000, including up to 120,000 dead, while Ukraine has lost 70,000 troops and injured between 100,000 and 120,000, Washington officials quoted as saying New York Times.

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

Andy Gregory, Chris Stevenson and Laura Sharman report:

President Vladimir Putin was visiting the commander of Russia’s operation in Ukraine and other senior military officials, the Kremlin said on Saturday. The meeting came after Ukraine announced gains in the counter-offensive on the south-eastern front.

“Vladimir Putin held a meeting at the headquarters of the special military task force in Rostov-on-Don,” the Kremlin said in a statement.

Russia, which launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, describes its actions as a special military operation.

The Kremlin added that Putin, Russia’s supreme commander, had listened to reports from Valery Gerasimov, the army chief of staff responsible for Moscow’s operations in Ukraine, and other senior military commanders and officers.

The meeting came after Ukraine, whose counter-offensive to retake Russia had been slower than expected in the first months of the war, said it had liberated a small village along the front line for the first time since July.

The Kremlin gave no further details of the meeting and it was not clear when the meeting took place. Videos released by the state news agency RIA showed Gerasimov seemingly greeting Putin at night and leading him into a building after a brief handshake.