In the early hours of September 3, Russian missiles struck the Ukrainian Ministry of Communications in the eastern city of Poltava that housed several hundreds of Ukrainian and NATO soldiers and a hospital that was adjacent to the communications institute.
Prodesq gathered that the attack was orchestrated through two different ballistic missiles and claimed the lives of 54 people and wounded more than 290 people.
The attack which is considered one of the deadliest air attacks since the beginning of war was reported by the Ukrainian State Emergency Service of Ukraine (SES).
Ukrainian officials issued a warning of an emergency power outage due to the attack. In a statement issued by Oleksandr Kharchenko, the director of the Energy Research Center, said that Pivdennoukrayinsk power plant of South Ukraine has experienced two more periodic shutdowns.
He however said that high voltage transmission lines are being repaired by state operator Energoatom but didn’t specify when the repair will be completed.
Philip Pronin, the regional governor of Poltava declared a three day mourning period for the victims.
A search and rescue operation has been underway for the past few days in search for survivors and trapped bodies, it still remains unclear but the Ukrainian authorities claimed that five people are still trapped in the rubbles.
Over 1760 tons of rubble has been removed from the site by the search and rescue workers in efforts to recover the missing bodies and the potential five survivors.
It’s been reported that a total number of the six-story building of the educational building was partially destroyed, three apartment buildings, five private houses and an office building were destroyed by the ballistic missiles.
Maryana Bezuhla, a member of the Ukrainian Parliament, revealed that the attack was a deliberate repetition of what happened to the Ukrainian 128th brigade last November.
On September 4, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine announced that the Russian army lost another 1200 soldiers wounded and killed.
He further claimed a total number of 6 armored tanks, 21 armored combat vehicles, 31 artillery systems, 42 operational-tactical level drones, 7 cruise missiles, 37 vehicles and 10 units of special equipment.
On February 25, 2024, Volodymyr Zelensky the Ukrainian president announced that a total number of 31,000 Ukrainians soldiers have been killed since the war began in February, 2022 but omitted the numbers of the wounded and the missing.
The Poltava attack has resurrected fresh agitation for the Ukrainian military to use long range missiles into Russia