An eight-year-old boy was killed in a Russian missile attack on Friday, 11 August.
Anton Petrus/Getty Images.
- Russian
forces fired Kinzhal hypersonic missiles on western Ukraine, targeting an
airfield. - An
eight-year-old boy who lived near the airfield was killed in the bombing. - The
boy, named only as Volodya, short for Volodymyr, was in the yard when the
attack came and “received numerous shrapnel wounds”.
Ukraine
said Friday that Russian forces had fired Kinzhal hypersonic missiles on
western Ukraine, targeting an airfield but killing an eight-year-old boy who
lived nearby.
Of
four missiles fired from southern and central Russia, one was shot down over
the Kyiv region by air defences, but the rest struck close to an airfield in
the western Ivano-Frankivsk region at around 07:00 GMT, the Ukrainian air force
said.
The
brunt of fighting between Ukrainian forces and invading Russian troops has
played out in the industrial east of the country but Moscow sporadically
launches strikes targeting infrastructure in western Ukraine too.
Prosecutors
said missiles struck civilian facilities and a residential area in the region
in the Carpathian mountains known for its ski slopes.
READ | Russia blames Ukraine for foiled drone attack on Moscow
“The
missiles hit territory near a private house in the Kolomyia district, where a
family with three children lived. An eight-year-old boy died as a result of the
shelling,” their statement said, accompanied by pictures of a house and
outbuilding with destroyed roofs.
Kolomyia
is a smallish city in the Ivano-Frankivsk region.
The
boy, named only as Volodya, short for Volodymyr, was in the yard when the
attack came and “received numerous shrapnel wounds”, the mayor of
Kolomyia, Bogdan Stanislavskyi, wrote on Telegram messenger service.
He
was hospitalised but doctors could not save him, the mayor said, announcing two
days of mourning at the weekend.
The
boy had moved to the area with his family at a young age and attended
kindergarten and school there, finishing second grade this year, the mayor
said.
“He
was a very inquisitive, diligent and cheerful child,” he added.
“This
is a terrible and very painful loss.”
Prosecutors
added they were clarifying information about other possible victims.
Kinzhal
missiles make up part of an arsenal of weapons that Russian President Vladimir
Putin has claimed were indestructible because of the speed at which they travel.
The
air force said that Russia had launched the missiles from Tula, some 180
kilometres south of the Russian capital and Lipetsk, around 460 kilometres from
Moscow.
