On the morning of April 17, Russia launched a missile strike on Chernihiv: three missiles hit the city center, the head of the regional administration Vyacheslav Chaus said.
One of the “arrivals” came to the object of social infrastructure, there are injured, specified the Acting Mayor of Chernihiv Oleksandr Lomako. 18 people died and another 77 were injured.
“This would not have happened if Ukraine had received enough air defense equipment and if the world’s determination to counter Russian terror was sufficient”, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
Russia strikes Ukrainian territory daily with missiles and kamikaze drones. Over the past few weeks, the Russian army has been targeting energy infrastructure using new tactics: the strikes have become more precise and concentrated. Also, Russian forces have started attacking energy facilities in less protected regions.
For example, Russia destroyed Ukraine’s largest Tripillya thermal power plant. Zelensky explained this by the fact that the Ukrainian military had run out of air defense shells due to the cessation of supplies by the USA. According to him, the energy facility was attacked by 11 missiles, seven of which the air defense managed to shoot down, but four reached the target because “we ran out of missiles”.
Earlier, Zelensky emphasized that Kyiv needs supplies of Patriot systems and shells to them the most. According to him, 25 complexes “with six to eight batteries each” will be enough to protect the country’s territory.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said that Kiev had found more than 100 Patriot batteries that allies could send to Ukraine. Some neighboring states have more than one installation guarding a port or an airfield, but partners refuse to provide them to Ukraine, he noted. Kuleba demanded that Western countries give the “damn Patriot” or provide them on lease.
The Ukrainian minister was supported by EU diplomatic chief Josep Borrell. “It is unthinkable that we cannot provide them, given that Western armies have about 100 Patriot surface-to-air missile systems in service. And yet we cannot provide the seven they are desperately asking for”, Borrel noted.
