At least 17 killed in Russian strike as Kharkiv mayor warns city will become ‘second Aleppo’ without US aid

At least 17 people have been killed and dozens injured after three Russian missiles slammed into a busy area of the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv – as Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky pleaded for more air defences to protect civilians.

The three explosions ripped through an eight-floor apartment building just after 9am local time (6am GMT), according to the city’s acting mayor Oleksandr Lomako.

Footage showed emergency service workers frantically trying to rescue civilians buried under the rubble of the destroyed building.

At least 60 people, including three children, were wounded in the morning attack, Ukrainian emergency services said.

Chernihiv lies about 90 miles north of the capital, Kyiv, near the border with Russia and Belarus, and has a population of around 250,000 people.

Ukraine’s interior minister Ihor Klymenko said a 25-year-old police lieutenant and a woman in a nearby house on sick leave were among those killed.

Following a recent Russian double-tap strike in Kharkiv, northeast Ukraine, during which a second missile hit emergency workers after they rushed to the scene of the initial explosion, Mr Klymenko urged local Chernihiv residents to be careful about publishing information regarding the attack. “Do not endanger the emergency workers who are trying to save the victims,” he said.

The devastating attack capped a difficult few days for Ukrainians as they watched their allies, including the UK and US, help defend Israel against an Iranian attack over the weekend, all the while denying further support to Ukraine.

“These innocent people would not have been killed or injured if Ukraine had sufficient air defence capabilities,” wrote Ukraine’s top diplomat, Dmytro Kuleba. “Three days ago in the Middle East, we saw what reliable protection of human lives from missiles looks like.”

Mr Zelensky, without mentioning the conflict in the Middle East, suggested the attack could have been prevented “if the world determination to counter Russian terror had been sufficient”.

“Terrorists can only destroy lives if they first intimidate those who can stop terror and save lives,” he wrote on X/Twitter. “Determination matters. Support matters.”

“The Ukrainian determination is sufficient. There must be equally sufficient determination from our partners and, as a result, sufficient support.”

A shortage in air defences has largely been caused by a hold-up in Washington, where Donald Trump supporters in the Republican-controlled lower chamber of Congress have refused to pass a $60bn military aid package to Ukraine, which was originally proposed last October.

House speaker Mike Johnson, the face of that opposition, said on Sunday that he would try to move the package forward this week, though it is not the first time he has made such a promise.

It comes as the mayor of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, is at risk of becoming “a second Aleppo” if the US does not finally push through the package.

The city, located roughly 30 miles from the Russian border, is among the worst hit of Russia’s recent long-range attacks targeting energy infrastructure across Ukraine. Russian forces have also fired deadly guided aerial bombs nicknamed “building destroyers”, some of which weigh more than a tonne, into dense civilian areas in the city.

Mayor Ihor Terekhov said Russia was trying to eradicate the city’s power supply, having already destroyed two major power plants east of the city, as well as all its substations, in a massive attack on 22 March, as well as terrorise its residents.

He toldThe Guardian that the US weapons package was of “critical importance for us”. “We need that support to prevent Kharkiv being a second Aleppo,” he said, referring to the Syrian city heavily bombed by Russian and Syrian government forces during the country’s civil war a decade ago.

Power in the city, about 30 miles from the Russian border, was interrupted after another bombing raid this week, causing the metro to be halted briefly. Residents say they are lucky to have more than a few hours’ worth of electricity a day in the city centre.

Mr Terekhov said there were concerns Russia could soon switch to targeting gas distribution after storage facilities in the west were attacked last week.