A Russian attack on a military educational institute in the central Ukrainian city of Poltava on Tuesday killed at least 47 people and injured more than 206, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said.
The Ukrainian president said in a video address that according to preliminary information the attack was carried out using two ballistic missiles.
“One of the buildings of the [Poltava Military] Institute of Communications was partially destroyed. People found themselves under the rubble. Many were saved,” Zelenskiy said in a video posted on his Telegram channel.
“All necessary services are involved in the rescue operation,” he added. According to reports, the second building hit was a hospital.
The strike triggered anger on Ukrainian social media after unconfirmed reports said it had targeted an outdoor military ceremony, or roll call, with many blaming reckless behaviour from officials who allowed the event to take place despite the threat of Russian attacks.
Zelenskiy said he held Russia accountable but had ordered a “full prompt investigation into all the circumstances of what happened”.
Poltava’s governor, Philip Pronin, said his administration could not provide more details of the circumstances of the strike “for security reasons”.
“The enemy is using any means to bring Ukraine more pain and disorientate Ukrainians. Please trust only reliable sources,” he said.
Maria Bezugla, an MP who regularly criticises the country’s military leadership, accused high-ranking officials of endangering soldiers by allowing such events. “These tragedies keep repeating themselves. When will it stop?” she wrote on Telegram.
The attack came in the middle of the day on Tuesday, and if the death count is confirmed it would be one of the deadliest single strikes of the war to date. Poltava is about 200 miles (300km) south-east of Kyiv, far from the frontlines.
Photographs posted on social media in Ukraine showed several bodies lying on the ground covered in dust and debris. Substantial damage could be seen on two separate nearby multistorey buildings, with at least five floors struck in one of them where the outer wall had been blown out.
A statement from Ukraine’s defence ministry said the “time between the air raid siren and the incoming deadly missile was so short that it caught people at the moment they were evacuating to the shelter”.
It added that rescue crews and medics had saved 25 people at the scene, including 11 who were dug out from the rubble.
Although the identities of the victims were not immediately disclosed, Serhiy Beskrestnov, a prominent Ukrainian Telegram blogger followed by many radio, communications and electronic warfare specialists in Ukraine’s military, posted a tribute to “my signals operator comrades”.
Russian Telegram channels described the site of the hit as a military training facility. A military communications college is located in Poltava. It was not immediately clear how many of the victims of the attack were military or civilians.
Russia has struck civilian targets repeatedly throughout the two and a half years of full-scale war, and has intensified its relentless air assault on Ukraine in recent weeks.
It launched a large missile and drone attack on Kyiv in the early hours of Monday, most of which was intercepted by Ukrainian air defence.
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On Monday night, two people were killed in the city of Zaporizhzhia, according to the regional governor, including an eight-year-old boy.
Ukraine also targeted Russia with more than 158 drones at the weekend, damaging an oil refinery near Moscow and a power station, and last week the country was pummelled with the heaviest bombardment to date.
Zelenskiy repeated his calls for more western air defences and urged allies to allow their long-range weapons to be used for strikes deeper into Russian territory in order to protect Ukraine.
“We keep telling everyone in the world who has the power to stop this terror: air defence systems and missiles are needed in Ukraine, not in a warehouse somewhere.
“Long-range strikes that can protect us from Russian terror are needed now, not some time later. Unfortunately, every day of delay means loss of life.”
The deadly strikes came as Vladimir Putin received a red-carpet welcome to Mongolia on Tuesday, as the country ignored calls to arrest him on an international warrant for alleged war crimes stemming from Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
The trip is the Russian president’s first to a member nation of the international criminal court (ICC) since it issued the warrant in March 2023. Before the visit, Ukraine urged Mongolia to hand Putin over to the court in The Hague, and the EU expressed concern that Mongolia might not execute the warrant.
The ICC has accused Putin of being responsible for the abductions of children from Ukraine. Member countries are required to detain suspects if a warrant has been issued, but Mongolia needs to maintain its ties with Russia and the court lacks a mechanism to enforce its warrants.
Putin was welcomed in the main square in Ulaanbaatar, the capital, by an honour guard dressed in vivid red and blue uniforms styled on those of the personal guard of the 13th-century ruler Genghis Khan, the founder of the Mongol empire.
