Among the injured are as many as 11 children, with a drama theater among the sites hit by the shelling.
The Ukrainian Interior Ministry confirmed the casualties, with its head, Ihor Klymenko, reporting the figures on the messaging platform Telegram.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenski wrote on Telegram that “a Russian rocket hit right in the center of Chernihiv, there are dead and wounded.” Zelenski also pledged that Ukraine would rally the global community against Russia's "acts of terror."
In a related incident, Russian artillery shelling resulted in the death of a 65-year-old woman in Hulaipol, a city in the Zaporizhia region of southern Ukraine, as reported by the Ukrinform portal. Yuriy Malashka, head of the regional administration, confirmed the event.
Chernihiv, located 140 kilometers from Kiev, serves as a critical gateway to the capital from the north. Since the onset of Russia's invasion, it has faced intense shelling and has been one of Ukraine's most besieged cities. Russian forces had tried to surround and seize Chernihiv early in the conflict, but their advance was halted in the northeastern outskirts of the city in early spring of last year.
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Source: PAP