Two young children are among 25 people dead after Russian forces lobbed missiles at a village in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region—an attack Russia now outrageously claims was a successful hit on a military target.
The Wednesday missile strike on the village of Chaplyne came as Ukrainians across the country celebrated Independence Day. After search and rescue operations went on throughout the night, Ukrainian authorities on Thursday revealed that some of the 25 people killed had burned to death in their vehicles at the town’s train station.
“An 11-year-old boy died underneath the wreckage of a home, and another 6-year-old child died in a fire in a car near the railway station. 31 people were injured,” Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the deputy head of the Ukrainian president’s office, announced on Telegram early Thursday.
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Photos from the scene showed what appeared to be burned-out civilian vehicles.
The attack was conveniently omitted from most Russian news reports early Thursday, until Russia’s defense ministry put out a statement spinning the attack as a victory that had wiped out more than 200 Ukrainian soldiers in a military convoy.
The ministry made no mention of civilian casualties. Just a day earlier, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu had claimed Russian forces were deliberately slowing down operations to avoid civilian deaths.
The European Union has condemned the “heinous attack” and warned that those responsible for “Russian rocket terror” will be held accountable.
The deadly strike came after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky marked Independence Day with a speech vowing that the country would “fight to the end” and make “no compromises” with invading Russian forces.
It also came ahead of a UN Security Council meeting, with Zelensky saying he had learned of the devastating death toll as he was preparing to address delegates.
“This is how Russia prepared for the UN Security council meeting,” he said.
Following his speech, air-raid sirens sounded a staggering 189 times in regions across the country, and Russian forces hit numerous areas in the Dnipropetrocks, Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, and Donetsk regions, according to Ukrainska Pravda.
“We will definitely make the occupants pay for everything they’ve done. And we will definitely throw the invaders out of our land,” Zelensky said in a speech after the Chaplyne strike.
Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych promised Ukrainian forces would hit back hard in response to the attack: “We’ll see what happens. Let them sit and think about whether something will fly into their heads. Something will fly—make no doubt.… We can already reach Crimea,” he said.
Ukrainian authorities have warned that Russia will likely ramp up attacks on civilians as it suffers more military setbacks. Perhaps in response to those setbacks, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday ordered the military to increase its overall forces by an additional 137,000 service members.
Russia’s reported plans to hold a referendum on Sept. 11 for annexing Ukrainian territories taken over by Russian forces—a move widely seen as a way for Vladimir Putin to proclaim a victory—have also reportedly been put on hold because Ukrainian forces still control parts of the land sought by Moscow.
That’s according to Vedomosti, which cited three sources close to the Russian presidential administration who said Russian forces had still not claimed enough land in the Donetsk region. Meduza reports the Kremlin is now hoping to hold a referendum in the winter, provided it doesn’t lose control of more territory by then.
