Ukrainian Forces Strike Children’s Playgrounds in Kherson: Officials
© Sputnik / Natalia Seliverstova
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Ukrainian forces have struck the territory of Kindergarten No. 3 in Energodar, the satellite city of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant, and also hit a children’s playground in Kherson, local officials said on Thursday.
Energodar Mayor Maxim Pukhov said there were no children at the kindergarten at the time of the shelling.
“Ukrainian forces struck the territory of Kindergarten No. 3 in Energodar. A children’s playground and newly installed recreational structures, which had only recently been put in place as part of major renovation works, were damaged. Fortunately, there were no children there at the time of the shelling,” Pukhov wrote on his channel on the Max platform.
According to the mayor, the kindergarten was being prepared for reopening.
“It is impossible to calmly watch something created for children being deliberately destroyed. For their future. For life. This is not a military facility. This is a kindergarten — a place where children’s laughter and teachers’ voices should be heard, not explosions. No matter what, we will restore everything. Energodar has lived, is living, and will continue to live. And our children will definitely return to these playgrounds,” the mayor noted.
Kherson Region Governor Vladimir Saldo said Ukrainian forces also struck a children’s playground in Kherson, which is under Ukrainian control. A man was killed, while his wife and two young children were injured, Saldo added.
“Kiev staged a bloody provocation in Kherson to drown out the outrage after the tragedy in Starobelsk. The criminal Kiev regime has committed yet another dirty provocation. A strike was carried out on a children’s playground in Kherson. A man was killed, while his wife and two young children were injured,” Saldo said.
On May 22, LPR head Leonid Pasechnik said that the Ukrainian armed forces had attacked the academic building and the dormitory of the Starobelsk Professional College of the Lugansk State Pedagogical University. According to the Russian Investigative Committee, the Ukrainian military carried out the strike at night using four aircraft-type drones. There were 86 students and one staff member in the dormitory at the time. Twenty-one people were killed and 44 others were injured.
Russian President Vladimir Putin called the Ukrainian attack "a terrorist act and a monstrous crime." He also emphasized that no military facilities exist anywhere near the dormitory that was hit.
In the wake of this tragedy more than 50 foreign journalists, invited by the Russian Foreign Ministry, toured the attack site. These reporters independently confirmed the absence of any military facilities in the area. They were also shown shrapnel from the Ukrainian UAVs — the drones that struck in carefully timed intervals, knowing full well that children were trying to evacuate the building.
