DE Online Desk:
At least 51 people were killed and more than 200 others injured in a Russian missile attack against a military educational facility in central Ukraine in one of the deadliest single attacks since the start of Moscow’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
A military academy and a nearby hospital were hit. Ukraine’s land forces confirmed that military personnel were killed in the attack.
People did not have enough time to get to bomb shelters after the air raid alarm sounded, Ukraine’s ministry of defence said.
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President Volodymyr Zelensky promised that what he called “Russian scum” would pay for the attack, and repeated calls for more air defences so that Ukraine could protect itself by carrying out its own long-range missile attacks. Moscow has not commented on the attack.
People nearby told us their windows were blown out by the force of the impact.
We met 26-year-old Mykyta Petrov, a cadet who only started at the Poltava Military Communications Institute two weeks ago.
He described the moment the attack unfolded just after 09:00 local time on Tuesday morning (06:00 GMT), saying the second missile hit just three seconds after the first.
“I ran outside, there was smoke and dust everywhere…lots of people were outside having a cigarette, and many were killed…”
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He says that what he saw has affected him psychologically, that there was “too much blood, too many dead bodies.”
Earlier reports from Russian military bloggers suggested that cadets were gathered at a military parade being held at the institute, but the ministry confirmed there was no parade happening at the time of the strike.
Alarms sounded at 09:08 local time and everyone headed to the shelter, the defence ministry added. The explosions started a few minutes after the alarms.
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Thirty-year-old year old Jana Kulishova was one of them. She was woken by the air raid siren but did not have time to reach a shelter.
For her, the attack is personal. Her husband is fighting on the front line in the Donbas region.
“Soldiers have died here and I know there are still soldiers still under the rubble. Their wives are waiting for them.”
Ukrainian MP Oleksiy Goncharenko told the BBC the two minutes between the air raid siren in Poltava and the missiles landing was “nothing”.
“You just imagine you’re on the sixth floor of some building and you need to run away downstairs. Is it realistic that you can do this in two minutes?” he said.
“Just imagine this life and like this several times per day. We can’t continue like this. It’s just not fair.”
In a statement on Telegram which confirmed the deaths of the military personnel, Ukraine’s land forces said an investigation was under way to establish whether enough was done to protect those in the facility the missile hit.
It confirmed additional measures to ensure safety at military facilities would be increased.
Firefighters have been on the scene with all their equipment clearing out buildings, and army personnel outside have stopped people. They cannot get too close due to the sensitivity of the site.
Earlier, one Poltava resident, Olena Serdyuk, said: “The air raid alert started in just a minute, and then there were two explosions.
“At home, we immediately ran into the bathroom with the child, but then gathered ourselves”.
She added that there is no bomb shelter “in our radius”, and it “takes a long time to run somewhere”.
Another local, Anastasiia Artyukh, heard “two very strong explosions” and called the situation “really scary”.
