CHILDREN attending a kindergarten were among those caught up in the rocket attacks on Kyiv, it was claimed today.
Petro Poroshenko, the former President of Ukraine, told GB News he’d witnessed missile strikes hitting playgrounds.
Speaking this afternoon to Gloria De Piero and Mark Longhurst on GB News he said: “This has happened just a couple of hours ago. Just 200 meters from here. There were a lot of children (affected) who went to kindergarten.”
It was unclear if any of the children had been hurt. But when asked about the total death toll in the city Mr Poroshenko confirmed widespread reports by saying: “Ten people have been killed, more than 60 wounded and 11 of those are critical. Putin wants to make us afraid. He wants to disunite us. But Ukraine has demonstrated we are unbreakable. We are not afraid of Putin. We do not trust Putin.”
Mr Poroshenko said the recent (SUN/MON) attacks indicated Russia was launching strikes on the wider world.
“This is just a demonstration that this is an attack only against Ukraine, this is an attack against the UK, against France, against the US. This is an attack against the whole free world.
“But we are together. We are not afraid; we are full of determination to throw Putin away from Ukrainian soil. And the international community stands shoulder to shoulder with the Ukrainian people.
“I want to use this opportunity to thank you too, for your extremely great leadership in the world together with the Americans. This leadership should definitely bring peace to the world.”
Meanwhile a prominent Russian expert told GB News worse could come.
Keir Giles, senior consulting fellow of the Russia and Eurasia Programme at Chatham House, told GB News: “Russia has always been trying to hammer civilian areas in Ukraine, but it hasn’t been seen at this kind of intensity since the early weeks of the war.
“And it does seem to be a deliberate response by Russia to try to destroy what it can. There seems to be the attitude that if they can’t defeat Ukraine by military means, if they can’t have Ukraine, nobody else can.
“So, they will be trying to cause as much destruction and misery across the country as they’re able to. And there are two separate programmes here. They’re two separate patterns of attacks. We’re seeing a lot of pictures and videos of attacks in populated areas in the cities because that’s where people are. But the other thing that’s happening at the same time is targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, trying to make sure that Ukraine doesn’t have power. And we’re already hearing about the start of rolling blackouts of power in major populated areas.”
On the growing pressure on Putin, Mr Giles added: “It’s worth mentioning that Putin has not only pointed to the attack on the character bridge to Crimea as a cause for this stepping up of the attacks on civilians in Ukraine. He’s also saying Ukraine has been carrying out a number of other attacks which seemed quite implausible, like bombing the gas pipeline to Turkey and carrying out an attack on a Russian nuclear power station.
“The criticism of President Putin has become even more vocal and the criticism of his generals, and the conduct of the war, has now become quite shrill.
“Putin did have to respond with some show of force because otherwise it would be a demonstration of weakness and an admission of defeat in this war.”
