Five people have been killed and 25 wounded in a Russian missile strike on a flight school in the central Ukrainian city of Kropyvnytskyi.
Andriy Raikovych, governor of the Kirovohrad region, told a news briefing on Thursday that two missiles had struck hangars at the National Aviation University Flight Academy around 12:20 p.m. (0920 GMT).
“There are victims, dead and wounded. Twenty-five have already been taken to medical institutions – they were wounded. Five were killed, one of them from the military,” he said.
“There are material losses – two civilian aircraft and one AN-26 aircraft.”
Reuters could not immediately verify the report. Russia did not immediately comment on the report.
Earlier today, Ukraine said that Moscow’s forces had struck a military base north of the capital Kiev, in a rare admission of a Russian attack on Ukrainian military infrastructure.
Senior Ukraine military official Oleksiy Gromov told reporters that Russian forces had fired “six Kalibr cruise missiles on a military base in Lyutizh” at around 0200 GMT.
One building was destroyed and two were damaged, he said, in the attack on the town some 30 kilometres (19 miles) north of the capital.
The missiles – one of which was shot down by Ukrainian air defences – were fired from the Crimea peninsula, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, he added.
Losses among troops
Gromov also reported attacks on Ukraine’s northern region of Chernigiv, with shells fired from neighbouring Belarus, an ally of Moscow.
He added there were “losses” among Ukrainian troops.
In the east, Russian forces were trying to advance towards Siversk and Bakhmut – cities in the industrial Donbass region that Moscow is attempting to capture, Gromov said.
The situation there was “difficult but fully under control”, he said.
In the Russia-controlled region of Kherson, where Ukrainian forces are waging a counter-offensive, three villages have been recaptured over the past two weeks, Gromov added.
‘We will not give up’
“It’s a troubled morning. Again there is missile terror. We will not give up,” Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on social media.
At least one person was killed and two injured in a strike on the central Dnipro region, governor Valentin Reznichenko said on social media.
Ukraine’s second largest city Kharkiv in the northeast was shelled twice during the night with S-300 missiles, resulting in fires, mayor Igor Terekhov said.
In the southern Mykolaiv region one person was injured and a school building was destroyed following “extensive” shelling, regional governor Vitaliy Kim said.
