At least 51 people were killed and more than 200 injured Tuesday in a Russian missile strike on a military training facility and nearby hospital in central Ukraine, officials in the country said.
Two ballistic missiles hit an “educational institution” and a nearby hospital in the city of Poltava, 190 miles southeast of Kyiv, the capital, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a video post on the Telegram messaging app. He added that one of the buildings of the Poltava Military Institute of Communication was partially destroyed.
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NBC News was able to geolocate a video showing bomb damage to the 179th Training Center of Signal Forces for the Ukrainian Armed Forces in Poltava.
A photo circulating on social media that was also geolocated to the center showed the bodies of at least five people in military uniforms lying among the rubble; one person lies in a pool of blood and is missing a hand.
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Zelenskyy said 41 people had died in the strikes, but the prosecutor general’s office, said in a later statement that 51 people had perished and more than 200 people were injured.
The facility had been targeted with two Iskander-M ballistic missiles, the statement said. “Rescuers, an investigative and operational group and other services are working on the site, and the clearing of the debris is ongoing,” it added.
NBC News could not independently verify the death toll or the type of weapons used. Russia has not commented on the incident, but some of the country's influential military bloggers had reported a deadly strike on a military site hours before the Ukrainian announcement.
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It appears to be one of the deadliest strikes on Ukraine since the beginning of the war some 2½ years ago. A missile attack on Kyiv in July also killed 41 people.
“Poltava is experiencing a terrible day today,” the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said in a statement Tuesday, adding that “one of the city’s educational institutions” was hit.
“The time interval between the alarm and the arrival of the deadly missiles was so short that it caught people at the moment of evacuation to the bomb shelter,” it added.
Some people were trapped under the rubble, Zelenskyy said, but many were rescued.
“I have ordered a full and prompt investigation into all the circumstances of what happened,” he said. “All necessary services are involved in the rescue operation.”
Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said in a separate post that rescuers had contained the fire and were continuing to clear the rubble, adding that 11 people were pulled from under the debris.
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