Putin intensifies attacks on civilians in Ukraine: more than 75 dead in recent hours

News about the Russian bombing in Ukraine caused this Thursday, on the twenty-second day of the invasion, an increase in the number of deaths in the country.

The biggest bloodbath in the last hours happened in Chernihiv. The authorities indicated that 53 bodies had arrived at the morgue because of the shelling in the north of the country.

Chernihiv, near the borders with Belarus and Russia, was one of the first Ukrainian cities to be attacked by Russian forces at the beginning of the invasion three weeks ago.

“The enemy exposes the city to systemic artillery and air strikes, destroying Chernihiv's civilian infrastructure,” Viacheslav Chaus, head of the state administration of the region, reported in a Facebook post.

At the same time, at least 21 people were killed and 25 injured Thursday in a Russian bomb attack on the eastern Ukrainian city of Merefa, the regional prosecutor's office reported.

Artillery fire hit a school and cultural center Thursday morning in that city, outside Kharkiv, the prosecutor's office said on Facebook. Ten of the wounded are serious.

In the capital, Kiev, a building in the Darnytsky district was badly damaged. According to the authorities, these were the remains of a missile shot down early in the morning, leaving at least one dead and three injured.

While residents were cleaning windows and carrying bags with their belongings, a man knelt down crying next to the body of a woman lying near a door, covered with a bloody sheet.

The population of the capital is sheltered in houses and shelters in the face of the Russian offensive. One person was killed and at least three others were injured when an apartment building in central Kiev was set on fire by the remains of a Russian rocket, according to emergency services. Firefighters evacuated 30 people from the upper floors of the 16-story building and put out the fire in less than an hour.

The encouraging news came to Mariupol, which was in shock the day before the attack on a theater that served as a refuge for at least 1,000 people, according to local authorities.

Survivors began to emerge from the rubble blocking the entrance, with the help of rescuers. Miraculously, the shelter was still standing. “The building withstood the impact of a high-powered air bomb and protected the lives of people hiding in the air raid shelter,” said mediator Ludmyla Denisova on the Telegram messaging app.

Denisova and MP Sergiy Taruta said that some survivors had left. “People come out alive,” Taruta wrote on Facebook, without giving figures. It was not known if there were any injuries or deaths among the people inside. Legislator Lesia Vasylenko, a member of a delegation in London, said injuries had been reported, but not deaths.

At least since Monday, on the sidewalk outside the elegant theater, large letters formed the word “CHILDREN” in Russian, according to images distributed by the space technology company Maxar.

(With information from AFP, EFE, Reuters)

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