Three Russian missiles crashed into Ukraine's historic city of Chernihiv on Wednesday, April 17, killing 17 people, as officials pleaded for more air defense systems from allies.
Pools of blood gathered on the street at the scene of one strike, where rescuers searched for survivors in the rubble and carried away the wounded on stretchers, official images showed.
At least 61 people, including three children, were wounded in the morning attack, Ukrainian emergency services said. Buildings and cars across the center of the northern city were destroyed in the strike.
President Volodymyr Zelensky, who has urged allies to send more missiles to thwart Russian aerial attacks, said Ukraine lacked the weapons it needed to intercept the three missiles that struck Chernihiv.
Mayor Oleksandr Lomako said more than a dozen buildings had been damaged in the attack while other officials said dozens of vehicles, and medical and educational facilities were also damaged.
A 25-year-old policewoman on sick leave was among those killed after suffering a severe shrapnel injury, the interior minister announced. An eight-story hotel building was gutted by the strike. Nearby apartments, a beauty salon and a beer shop were among structures whose windows had been blown out by the attack.
The Chernihiv region, which borders Belarus to the north, was partially occupied at the beginning of the Russian invasion but has been spared fighting for around two years since Russian forces retreated.
Zelensky blamed Russia for the attack but also said the West should do more to help defend Ukraine's skies. "This would not have happened if Ukraine had received sufficient air defense equipment and if the world's determination to resist Russian terror had been sufficient," he said.
Echoing the comments, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba suggested in a social media post that Ukraine should enjoy the same cover from aerial attacks as Israel.
"In the Middle East, we saw what reliable protection of human lives from missiles looks like," he added, referring to the interception of Iran's drone and missile barrage on Israel last Saturday.
Kuleba thanked Germany for agreeing to supply Ukraine with another Patriot air defense system and said he would appeal to other countries at a G7 meeting this week for more weapons.
A growing chorus in Ukraine has been appealing to allied countries for more sophisticated air defense weapons to ward off Russian strikes on key infrastructure. Poor weather as well as Russian attacks on Ukrainian power plants have left thousands in the war-scarred country with limited electricity supplies.
Chernihiv lies some 145 kilometers (90 miles) north of Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, and had a pre-war population of around 285,000 people. The city – home to some of Ukraine's oldest churches – lies hundreds of kilometers from the front line but has occasionally been targeted in long-range Russian strikes.
In August last year, seven people were killed in a Russian missile attack on a theatre hosting an exhibition on drones. The city was badly damaged when Russian tanks swept into Ukraine from Belarusian territory in February 2022 and besieged the city until April that year.