- Russia purposefully targeted a Ukrainian hotel used by the UN to make officials, journalists, and aid agencies feel unsafe.
- UN ‘appalled’ by a missile attack on a hotel used by officials.
- Child killed by Russian missile strike
- Fragments from downed missiles landed in Kyiv as explosions rocked the capital.
Russia purposefully targeted a Ukrainian hotel used by the UN to make officials, journalists, and aid agencies feel unsafe, our military analyst has said. Professor Michael Clarke said the Reikartz Hotel in Zaporizhzhia was widely known to be used by the international community.
“That’s not a targeting error. This is a pattern to make it clear that the international community is in danger if it goes to these places, even a long way behind the frontline,” he said.
He said no UN personnel appeared to be at the hotel when it was struck by the missile, which killed at least one person and injured 16. UN humanitarian coordinator Denise Brown called the attack appalling, but Clarke said: “It’s a message the Russians are sending because they don’t really care too much about the international view of this.”
The UN has condemned a Russian attack on a Ukrainian hotel used by its officials which killed one person and injured 16.
A missile hit Zaporizhzhia city yesterday evening, destroying parts of the Reikartz Hotel and starting a fire, Volodymyr Zelenskyy and local media reported. UN staff regularly use the hotel when working in the area, according to Denise Brown, the humanitarian coordinator for Ukraine.
“I am appalled by the news that a hotel frequently used by United Nations personnel and our colleagues from NGOs supporting people affected by the war has been hit by a Russian strike in Zaporizhzhia,” she said. “I have stayed in this hotel every single time I visited.”
It was the second strike on Zaporizhzhia in as many days, with four children among the injured. Two young women and a man were killed and nine other people were wounded in a Russian missile attack on Wednesday.
A Russian missile has crashed into the grounds of a house in western Ukraine, killing an eight-year-old boy, a regional governor said. Multiple people are wounded, according to the head of the Ivano-Frankivsk region, Svitlana Onyshchuk. The child was taken to hospital in a critical condition, she said. “Medics did everything possible, but unfortunately the child’s life could not be saved.”
Fragments from downed missiles landed in Kyiv as explosions rocked the capital. The air force reported that Russia had launched hypersonic Kinzhal missiles at the region, while city officials confirmed the capital’s air defences were at work. Mayor Vitali Klitschko said no one was hurt at the hospital, while a complex of homes was damaged.
“We should thank our air defence forces for shooting down the missiles,” Mykhailo Shamanov, a city official, said on television shortly after the strike. Authorities issued a nationwide air alert before the attack, and social media monitors reported that several Russian warplanes carrying long-range missiles had taken off from Russian air bases.
(With inputs from agencies)
