Two teenage girls have been killed in a Russian missile strike on Ukraine’s northern city of Chernihiv, with homes, businesses and vehicles also damaged in the attack.
Emergency responders rushed to the scene to extinguish burning cars and fires in damaged buildings, as thick smoke rose above the area and debris littered the streets.
Footage from the scene showed rescue workers carrying an injured person into an ambulance, while another victim’s body lay covered with a blanket.
The local military administration said the attack involved a Banderol cruise missile, a relatively inexpensive, jet-powered weapon capable of loitering before hitting its target.
The strike came as a separate, United States-brokered ceasefire around the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region was reportedly holding.
Ukrainian and Russian human rights ombudsmen said on Wednesday that the local truce had passed 30 hours without an incident.
The ceasefire is intended to allow military engineers to clear mines, open routes for humanitarian assistance and enable civilians who wish to leave the city to evacuate.
Images released by Russia’s Defence Ministry purportedly showed military engineers carrying out mine-clearing operations near Oleshky, although the date the footage was recorded was not disclosed.
About 2,000 people are believed to remain in the city, where food, water and medicine have reportedly been in short supply for months.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky welcomed the temporary pause in hostilities but said the evacuation of civilians would be critical to the success of the arrangement.
The two developments underscore the continuing humanitarian toll of the war, as deadly attacks persist in parts of Ukraine despite local efforts to secure temporary pauses in fighting.
