Ukraine bombed during Zelensky’s Sweden visit

A man sita next to the body of a person at the site of a missile strike in the centre of Chernihiv. Pic/AFP

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited Sweden on Saturday, his first visit to the country since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year, while at home a missile strike in the centre of a northern city killed seven people and wounded dozens. The Swedish government said Zelenskyy will meet officials in Harpsund, about 120 km west of Stockholm. He will also meet Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia at a palace in the area.

Sweden abandoned its longstanding policy of military nonalignment to support Ukraine with weapons and other aid in the war against Russia. It also applied for NATO membership, but is still waiting to join the alliance. A Russian missile strike killed seven people and wounded 37 others on Saturday in the city centre of Chernihiv, the regional capital of the northern province of the same name, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said.

Zelenskyy condemned the attack, which he said hit buildings including a theatre and a university. "This is what a neighbourhood with a terrorist state is; this is what we unite the whole world against. A Russian missile hit right in the centre of the city, in our Chernihiv," the Ukrainian president wrote on Telegram. "A square, the polytechnic university, a theatre. An ordinary Saturday, which Russia turned into a day of pain and loss."

In Russia, President Vladimir Putin visited top military officials in the city of Rostov-on-Don near the Ukrainian border. The Kremlin said that Putin listened to reports from Valery Gerasimov, the commander in charge of Moscow's operations in Ukraine, and other top military brass at the headquarters of Russia's Southern Military District.

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The exact timings of his visit were not confirmed, but state media published video footage that appeared to be filmed at night, showing Gerasimov greeting Putin and leading him into a building. The meeting itself was held behind closed doors. Putin's visit was the first since the Wagner mercenary group's attempted mutiny in June, which saw the group's fighters briefly take control of Rostov-on-Don. On Saturday, Ukraine's air force said it shot down 15 out of 17 Russian drones targeting Ukraine's northern, central and western regions.

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