Two Russian ballistic missiles destroyed the building of the Military Institute of Communications in the Ukrainian city of Poltava on Tuesday. President Vladimir Putin said Volodymyr Zelensky initially reported that there were 41 dead and 180 wounded.. The Ministry of Defence has since updated the death toll to 49, with 219 wounded. Zelensky has limited himself to saying that “an educational institution and a neighbouring hospital” have been attacked. The head of state has said that “the Russian scum will pay for this attack”, but has also indicated that he has ordered “a full investigation into the circumstances of what happened”. The military academy, according to several Ukrainian and Russian sources, was full of soldiers.
In addition to the hospital, 10 residential buildings have been damaged, according to the city council of Poltava, a city in eastern Ukraine but far from the front line. Victims are still being searched for under the rubble. Amnesty International had already warned in 2022 that the Ukrainian Armed Forces were establishing military bases in densely populated areas far from the front, and that this put the civilian population at risk. Amnesty was the victim of a harsh institutional boycott in Ukraine. That report has been blocked from online consultation from Ukraine.
Criticism of the military leadership was not slow to emerge for allowing so many soldiers to be concentrated in the same building. Military, Ukrainian media outlet specialising in defence information has reported that civilians also studied at the Military Communications Institute. Telegram accounts close to the Russian military have estimated that there could be up to 300 soldiers in the building. Illia Ponomarenko, one of Ukraine’s most popular anti-invasion activists, called on social media X to punish those responsible for possible negligence: “Zelensky has declared that he will investigate the tragic incident, but this is not enough. It is not enough to make a statement and have it happen again. These investigations promised by Zelensky need the names of those who allow the Russians to do it again to be finally provided.”
“It seems that there are quite a few generals who have not learned the lesson after three years of war,” added Tatarigami, another prominent Ukrainian analyst of the war in the Middle East. Euromaidan Press. The harshest message was again written by MP Mariana Bezugla, a regular critic of the Ukrainian army, referring to a Russian attack in 2023 that ended the lives of dozens of soldiers in the Transcarpathian province, hundreds of kilometers from the front: “The case of the 128th Brigade taught nothing, no one was punished, because Zaluzhni, Pavliuk and Sirski [altos mandos militares] They said everything was resolved. We repeat and repeat the tragedies. Where is the limit?
The Ukrainian media RBC On Tuesday evening, the State Investigation Bureau, an agency working for the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, announced that it had opened an investigation into “possible military negligence.”
Zelensky reiterated that the tragedy in Poltava could be avoided if his international allies increased their aid in terms of anti-aircraft defense systems, but also if the United States authorized the use of long-range missiles against military targets on Russian soil. “Ukraine needs air defense systems and missiles now, not just warehouses. Long-distance strikes that can protect us from Russian terror are needed now. Every day of delay, unfortunately, means more lives lost.”
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The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, in line with the president’s statements, has accused the Kremlin of a “heinous and brutal attack” and has omitted that the attack could have been against a military target: “Russia has struck the city of Poltava killing dozens of people. A hospital and an educational center were the targets. Using ballistic missiles, the Russian invader left Ukrainians with almost no options to escape.”
John Healey, the UK Secretary of State for Defence, who met with Ukrainian Minister Rustem Umerov in London on Tuesday, described the bombing as “an indiscriminate attack by Putin’s forces”. Another Briton, John Foreman, former defence adviser to the UK embassies in Moscow and kyiv, had a different opinion on his social networks: “Mikolaiv, Yavoriv, Desna, Poltava… These are all military bases attacked by Russia in two and a half years, which have left massive casualties. Pure incompetence and a total disregard for the lives of soldiers by their authorities”. Umerov has published a note in which he has condemned “the brutality of Russian terror”, but in which he has also announced that his ministry will investigate whether there have been inappropriate decisions by the army.
The Poltava attack comes at a time when the invaders have intensified massive bombings against Ukrainian cities far from the front in the last two weeks, with the country’s energy system as the main target. On August 26, Ukraine suffered the largest bombing of the war, with more than 100 drones and more than 100 missiles targeting 15 provinces.
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