Russian missile and air strikes caused damage to the north and south of the Ukrainian capital in the early hours of Saturday, according to local officials.
In Chernihiv, some 100 kilometers north of Kyiv, the hotel Ukraine — a landmark in the city — was hit overnight.
“I am here now. There is no hotel anymore,” Vyacheslav Chaus, head of Chernihiv region administration, said Saturday.
The enemy continues to launch air and missile strikes on the city of Chernihiv. Civilians are dying, many people are being injured. The enemy shells civilian infrastructure, where there is no military,” he said.
Chernihiv has been surrounded by Russian forces for more than a week and video from the city shows widespread damage from missiles and airstrikes.
Chaus added that the city has “no electricity, almost no water, gas, and heat,” and while efforts to restore electricity on Friday were successful “the enemy hit an electricity network again.”
Social media video from Vasylkiv, south of Kyiv, showed a fuel dump on fire after a strike in the early hours of Saturday, and the military airfield there appears to have been heavily damaged.
Nataliia Balasynovych, the town’s mayor, said on Facebook: “Today at about 7 a.m. enemy forces shelled the city of Vasylkiv. Eight missiles hit, shelled the airport. As a result of the missile strikes, the airport was completely destroyed, the runway was destroyed.”
She added that an “ammunition depot also detonated. Ammunition is still detonating because one of the missiles hit the ammunition depot. The warehouse with fuels and lubricants was also destroyed. As a result, the capacity of our airport has been completely eliminated.”
The Russian Ministry of Defense had said earlier that a high-precision long-range weapon struck the military airfield in Vasylkiv.
