Kyiv: The death toll from a Russian missile strike on the Ukrainian city of Poltava rose to 54 with nearly 300 wounded, Ukrainian officials said Thursday.
The strike hit the Poltava military communications institute, according to Ukrainian officials who did not specify how many of the victims were military or civilians.
“The death toll rises to 54 after the Russian strike on educational institution in Poltava. Another 297 people were injured,” Ukraine’s emergency services said.
Up to five people could be trapped under the rubble, it added, two days after two ballistic missiles hit the central city of Poltava, in one of one of the single deadliest strikes of the two-and-a-half-year war.
The attack triggered widespread condemnation, including from Washington which denounced it as “another horrific reminder of (Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s brutality.”
It also prompted criticism in Ukraine after unconfirmed reports said the strikes had targeted an outdoor military ceremony, with many blaming reckless behavior from officials who allowed the event to take place despite the threat of attacks.
President Volodymyr Zelensky has ordered an investigation into the circumstances of the strike.
Capture the Donbas region
President Vladimir Putin said Thursday Moscow’s main Ukraine aim was to capture the Donbas region and that Russia’s army was “gradually” pushing back Kyiv’s forces from the Kursk region after their surprise incursion.
“The aim of the enemy was to make us worry... and to stop our offensive in key areas, especially in the Donbas, the liberation of which is our main primary objective,” Putin said at a forum in Vladivostok, adding: “Our armed forces have stabilized the situation (in Kursk) and started gradually squeezing (the enemy) out from our territory.”
Toll in Russian strike on Ukraine’s Poltava rises to 54
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Toll in Russian strike on Ukraine’s Poltava rises to 54
- Putin says Russia’s ‘primary objective’ is to capture Ukraine’s Donbas region
UN chief calls on Israel to reverse NGOs ban in Gaza
- In November, authorities in Gaza said more than 70,000 people had been killed there since the war broke out
- Israel on Thursday suspended 37 foreign humanitarian organizations from accessing the Gaza Strip after they had refused to share lists of their Palestinian employees with government officials
UNITED NATIONS, United States: UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called on Friday for Israel to end a ban on humanitarian agencies that provided aid in Gaza, saying he was “deeply concerned” at the development.
Guterres “calls for this measure to be reversed, stressing that international non-governmental organizations are indispensable to life-saving humanitarian work and that the suspension risks undermining the fragile progress made during the ceasefire,” his spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.
“This recent action will further exacerbate the humanitarian crisis facing Palestinians,” he added.
Israel on Thursday suspended 37 foreign humanitarian organizations from accessing the Gaza Strip after they had refused to share lists of their Palestinian employees with government officials.
The ban includes Doctors Without Borders (MSF), which has 1,200 staff members in the Palestinian territories — the majority of whom are in Gaza.
NGOs included in the ban have been ordered to cease their operations by March 1.
Several NGOS have said the requirements contravene international humanitarian law or endanger their independence.
Israel says the new regulation aims to prevent bodies it accuses of supporting terrorism from operating in the Palestinian territories.
On Thursday, 18 Israel-based left-wing NGOs denounced the decision to ban their international peers, saying “the new registration framework violates core humanitarian principles of independence and neutrality.”
A fragile ceasefire has been in place since October, following a deadly war waged by Israel in response to Hamas’s unprecedented October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
In November, authorities in Gaza said more than 70,000 people had been killed there since the war broke out.
Nearly 80 percent of buildings in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged by the war, according to UN data, leaving infrastructure decimated.
About 1.5 million of Gaza’s more than two million residents have lost their homes, said Amjad Al-Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGO Network in Gaza.
