CHERNIGIV, Ukraine: Three Russian missiles crashed into Ukraine’s historic city of Chernigiv on Wednesday, killing 17 people as officials pleaded for more air defense systems from allies.
Pools of blood gathered on the street at the scene of one strike, where rescuers searched for survivors in the rubble and carried away the wounded on stretchers, official images showed.
As President Volodymyr Zelensky appealed for more help from Western allies, the US House of Representatives finally announced a vote on a massive new military aid package that includes some $61 billion in long-delayed support for Kyiv, a move welcomed by President John Biden.
In Chernigiv, resident Olga Samoilenko told AFP how she ducked with her children into the corridor of their apartment building for protection when the first missile exploded.
“Our neighbors were already there. We started shouting for everyone to fall to the floor. They did. There were two more explosions. Then we ran to the parking lot,” the 33-year-old said.
The official death toll grew to 17 during the day, while emergency services said 60 people — including three children — had been wounded.
Mayor Oleksandr Lomako said more than a dozen buildings had been damaged in the attack while other officials said dozens of vehicles and medical and educational facilities were also damaged.
A 25-year-old policewoman on sick leave was among those killed after suffering a severe shrapnel injury, the interior minister announced.
AFP journalists at the scene saw a body being pulled from the rubble and an eight-story hotel building gutted by the strike where municipal workers were using a crane to clear debris.
Nearby apartments, a beauty salon and beer shop were among structures whose windows were blown out by the attack.
The Chernigiv region, which borders Belarus to the north, was partially occupied at the beginning of the Russian invasion but has been spared fighting for around two years since Russian forces retreated.
Zelensky blamed Russia for the attack but also said the West should do more to help defend Ukraine’s skies.
“This would not have happened if Ukraine had received sufficient air defense equipment and if the world’s determination to resist Russian terror had been sufficient,” he said.
Addressing the European Council by video link later Wednesday, Zelensky said Ukraine should enjoy the same cover from aerial attacks as Israel and pleaded for more air defense systems.
“Here in Ukraine, in our part of Europe, unfortunately, we don’t have the level of defense that we saw recently in the Middle East,” Zelensky said, according to a statement on his web site.
Zelensky was referring to the interception of Iran’s drone and missile barrage on Israel last Saturday.
“Our Ukrainian sky, the sky of our neighbors deserves the same level of defense.”
The Ukrainian president added: “All lives are equally valuable.”
In Washington, Biden applauded the planned vote in Congress on the massive new Ukraine aid package, scheduled for Saturday after months of political wrangling, and called on American lawmakers to pass it.
“I will sign this into law immediately to send a message to the world: ‘We stand with our friends, and we won’t let Iran or Russia succeed’,” he said in a White House statement.
Chernigiv lies some 145 kilometers (90 miles) north of Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and had a pre-war population of around 285,000 people.
The city was badly damaged when Russian tanks swept into Ukraine from Belarusian territory in February 2022 and besieged the city until April that year.
Russian missile barrage on Ukraine city kills 17
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Russian missile barrage on Ukraine city kills 17
- The official death toll grew to 17 during the day, while emergency services said 60 people — including three children — had been wounded
World copper rush promises new riches for Zambia
CAPE TOWN: Five years after becoming Africa’s first Covid-era debt defaulter, Zambia is seeing a dramatic turnaround in fortunes as major powers vie for access to its vast reserves of copper.
Surging demand from the artificial intelligence, green energy and defense sectors has exponentially boosted demand for the workhorse metal that underpins power grids, data centers and electric vehicles.
The scramble for copper exposes geopolitical rivalries as industrial heavyweights — including China, the United States, Canada, Europe, India and Gulf states — compete to secure supplies.
“We have the investors back,” President Hakainde Hichilema told delegates at the African Mining Indaba conference on Monday, saying that more than $12 billion had flowed into the sector since 2022.
The politically stable country is Africa’s second-largest copper producer, after the conflict-ridden Democratic Republic of Congo, and the world’s eighth, according to the US Geological Survey.
The metal, needed for solar panels and wind turbines, generates about 15 percent of Zambia’s GDP and more than 70 percent of export earnings.
Output rose eight percent last year to more than 890,000 metric tons and the government aims to triple production within a decade.
Mining is driving growth that is forecast by the International Monetary Fund to reach 5.2 percent in 2025 and 5.8 percent this year, which places Zambia among the continent’s faster-growing economies.
“The seeds are sprouting and the harvest is coming,” Hichilema said, touting a planned nationwide geological survey to map untapped deposits.
But the rapid expansion of the heavily polluting industry has also led to warnings about risks to local communities and concerns of “pit-to-port” extraction, in which raw copper is shipped directly abroad with little domestic refining.
’Dramatic new chapter’
“We need to be aware of the potential for history to repeat itself,” said Daniel Litvin, founder of the Resource Resolutions group that promotes sustainable development, referring to the colonial-era scramble for Africa’s resources.
There is a risk that elites will be enriched at the expense of the broader population, while “narratives of partnership” offered by major powers can mask underlying self-interest, he said.
Chinese firms have long dominated the sector in Zambia and control major stakes in key mines and smelters, cementing Beijing’s early-mover advantage.
Another major player is Canada’s First Quantum Minerals, Zambia’s largest corporate taxpayer.
Investors from India and the Gulf are expanding their footprint, and the United States is returning to the market after largely pulling out decades ago.
Washington, which has been stockpiling copper, this month launched a $12 billion “Project Vault” public-private initiative to secure critical minerals, part of an effort to reduce reliance on China.
In September, the US Trade and Development Agency announced a $1.4 million grant to a Metalex Commodities subsidiary, Metalex Africa, to expand operations in Zambia.
“We are at the beginning of what is going to unfold to be a dramatic new chapter in the way that the free world sources and trades in critical minerals,” US energy secretary adviser Mike Kopp said at Mining Indaba.
Sweeping US tariffs introduced last year helped send copper prices soaring to record highs, as companies rushed to buy both semi-finished and refined stocks.
Cost of rush
“The risk is that this great power competition becomes a race to secure supply on terms that serve markets and not the people in producer countries,” said Deprose Muchena, a program director at the Open Society Foundation.
Despite its mineral wealth, more than 70 percent of Zambia’s 21 million people live in poverty, according to the World Bank.
“The world is waking up to Zambia’s copper. But Zambia has been living with copper and its consequences for a century,” Muchena told AFP.
Environmental damage caused by mining has long plagued Zambia’s copper belt.
In February 2025, a burst tailings dam at a Chinese-owned mine near Kitwe, about 285 kilometers (180 miles) north of Lusaka, spilled millions of liters of acidic waste.
Toxins entered a tributary feeding the Kafue, Zambia’s longest river and a major source of drinking water. Zambian farmers have filed an $80 billion lawsuit.
“Whether this boom is different depends on whether governance, rights, and community agency are at the center, not just supply chain security,” Muchena said.
