47 dead and over 200 injured in Russian attack on Poltava, Ukraine says.

CGTN Europe

Ukraine says at least 47 people have been killed and some 206 injured in a Russian attack on the central city of Poltava.   President Zelenskyy said Russian forces struck with two ballistic missiles, damaging a building of the military institute of communications.   CGTN Europe’s Iolo ap Dafydd has the latest.  #Ukraine #Russia #RussiaUkraineConflict #Poltava #Missile #Attack

Transcript

00:00It is one of the most deadly attacks yet, definitely this year, and that number of people

00:06who have died now at 49, as you say, is expected to rise again, as indeed are the number of

00:13injured, because two separate places have been hit, according to the Ukrainians and

00:19to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky.

00:22He said that this educational facility and the hospital next door, that both of them

00:27were hit.

00:28Or according to the Ministry of Defense in Ukraine, that some of these people died as

00:33they were heading down into an underground bunker, an underground safe area.

00:39So that number of deaths will raise many, many questions, of course, especially in terms

00:45of the time of when they knew that these two missiles were flying towards Poltava.

00:53Now Poltava is about 112 kilometers south of the Russian border, south of where we

00:58are here.

00:59It is a central city, and it's a particularly bleak time for people in Poltava, because

01:06many refugees, many displaced people have moved from different parts, have escaped from

01:10different parts of Ukraine and live in Poltava.

01:14It's a city of around 300,000 people.

01:16So these attacks and the number of deaths will shock many, many people.

01:23The work to try and recover bodies and possibly recover people who may still be buried under

01:29the rubble is continuing, and that work will continue all through the night.

01:36We have had another stern message from President Zelensky, who was quite quickly, with his

01:43telegram messages and then a video message, where he once again asked for Western countries

01:49to help with air defense, to stop this kind of what he calls terrorism, and also for more

01:55weapons not to be stored in warehouses in the West, but to be used here to try and protect

02:01civilian life and military life in Ukraine.

02:05This will be a shock for many, many people, and it is one of the worst casualty rates

02:10that they have had during this war, and we will see whether that death toll will carry

02:15on getting higher and increasing.

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