KYIV, UKRAINE (AP) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy yesterday vowed stern retaliation for a missile strike in the centre of the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv that killed seven people and wounded almost 150 others the day before.
“I am sure our soldiers will respond to this terrorist attack. Respond tangibly,” Zelenskyy said in a video address published in the early hours yesterday at the end of a visit to Sweden, his first foreign trip since attending a NATO summit in Lithuania last month.
He identified a six-year-old girl named Sofia as among the dead in the attack and confirmed that the wounded included 15 children.
The governor of the Chernihiv region, Vyacheslav Chaus, said yesterday that the total number of people confirmed to have been wounded had risen to 148.
Zelenskyy arrived in the Netherlands yesterday, two days after the country said the United States (US) had given its approval for Dutch and Danish authorities to deliver F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine’s air force.
The US approval on Friday for the Netherlands and Denmark to deliver F-16s to Ukraine was seen as a major boost for Kyiv, even though the fighter jets won’t have an impact any time soon on the almost 18-month war.
