A Russian missile slammed into the centre of Chernihiv in northern Ukraine on Saturday, killing at least seven people and injuring more than 100, including 12 children, Ukrainian officials said.

What appeared to be a missile tore through the main square just before noon, as people were leaving a church where they were celebrating a holy day, the Ukrainian interior ministry said.

“A Russian missile hit the heart of Chernihiv,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a statement. “A square, a university and a theatre. Russia turned an ordinary Saturday into a day of pain and loss.”

Ukrainian officials and emergency services released graphic videos of the initial blast in the attack and the devastating aftermath. Victims could be seen sprawled in the square, surrounded by pools of blood. The interior ministry said a search-and-rescue operation was underway in the surrounding area.

The youngest known victim was a six-year-old girl who died at a local hospital, local officials said.

Zelensky said the deadly bombardment should remind the world that it needs to stand united against “Russian terror”, adding “For life to win, Russia must lose this war”.

The strike in Chernihiv, an elegant city that was battered by Russian forces during a siege in the first months of the war that ultimately failed, comes as Ukrainian forces are making incremental gains against entrenched Russian forces in the south of the country in their slow-moving counteroffensive.

Those advances are being earned through bloody battles across fields littered with mines and backed by deeply dug-in Russian forces. At the same time, Kyiv has stepped up its assaults on Russian military targets behind the front lines, including some inside Russia.

On Saturday, a Ukrainian drone reached a Russian air base hundreds of miles from the Ukrainian border in the Novgorod region, sparking a fire and damaging one aircraft, the Russian ministry of defence said in a statement.

The Russian military said “a copter-type UAV”, or unmanned aerial vehicle, was used to target the base and claimed to have shot it down. But as a result of the attack, the ministry said, “a fire broke out in the aircraft parking lot” and one plane was damaged. There were no casualties, the ministry said.

The Ukrainian Air Force, in a statement on Telegram, celebrated the attack on the airfield, called Soltsy, home to a fleet of Russian bombers that are frequently used to carry out strikes aimed at Ukrainian towns and cities.

New York Times News Service