kyiv. Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelensky on Sunday vowed a tough response to a Russian missile attack the previous day on the center of the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv, which killed seven people and wounded more than 100.
“I am sure that our soldiers will answer to Russia for this terrorist attack. Respond tangibly,” Zelensky said in a video message Sunday morning at the end of a visit to Sweden, his first trip abroad since attending the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit in Lithuania last month.
The president said that among those killed in the attack was a six-year-old girl named Sofia, and confirmed that 15 of the wounded were children.
The governor of the Chernihiv region, Vyacheslav Chaus, said on Sunday that the number of injured had risen to 148.
Further east, Russian forces struck the city of Kupiansk on Sunday morning, where a man suffered serious injuries, according to Kharkiv regional governor Oleh Syniehubov.
Zelensky arrived in the Netherlands on Sunday, two days after the country said the United States had given the go-ahead for Dutch and Danish authorities to hand over F-16 fighter jets to the Ukrainian air force.
Zelensky was scheduled to meet Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte at an airbase in the southern city of Eindhoven.
Washington’s go-ahead for the Netherlands and Denmark to deliver US-made F-16s to Ukraine was seen as a big boost to Kiev, although the planes will have no immediate impact on the nearly 18-month-old war.
Meanwhile, in Russia, five people were injured when a Ukrainian drone struck a train station in the city of Kursk, regional governor Roman Starovoit said on Sunday. Kursk is the capital of the western region of the same name, which borders Ukraine.
The unmanned aircraft crashed into the roof of the station building, where a fire broke out.
Russian air defenses electronically intercepted a drone flying towards Moscow on Sunday morning to cause it to crash. The Russian Defense Ministry described it as “an attempt by the kyiv regime to carry out a terrorist attack.”
Vnukovo and Domodedovo airports briefly suspended flights, but no casualties or damage were reported.
Ukrainian authorities, who do not usually comment on attacks on Russian soil, did not say whether they had launched such attacks. Drone raids on Russian border areas are quite common.
Drone strikes in the Russian hinterland have been on the rise since a drone was destroyed over the Kremlin in early May. Successful strikes have exposed the vulnerability of Moscow’s air defenses.
