The air alert siren sounded in the streets of Soumy (Ukraine), Monday, March 24, around 2 p.m. locals, as it frequently does day and night. Neither dense car traffic nor that of pedestrians were affected. But this time, the cause of the alert appeared a minute later. A violent explosion shook this city of 250,000 inhabitants in the northeast of the country. Such a short time between the alert and the shot suggests the use of an ISKANDER-M type ballistic missile from a ramp probably located a few tens kilometers away, behind the Russian border.
Immediately, thick black smoke rose in the air, visible miles around. A few minutes later, dozens of firefighters and police trucks converged on primary school n ° 20. An ambulance ballet reported many injured, the final number of which was released at the end of the evening was 94, including 23 children. More than a dozen people have been hospitalized, including 14 minors. No dead has been reported. The deaths of soldiers are not communicated.
The first damage appears 500 meters from the impact, windows blown by the shock wave. At the corner of the rue des Métallurgistes and rue Remnysnicha, a poodle in a lady's arms glacly gleaned from terror, sometimes covered by the cries of a child that her mother fails to calm. The police have already stretched a ribbon across the rue des Métallurgistes along school n ° 20, which seems deserted. All windows are blown away. The debris litter the lawn and the empty road. Beyond the ribbon, a handful of firefighters are fighting against the consequences of the sinister, under the eye of a few busy police officers and soldiers to secure the perimeter in front of the influx of haggard residents. “Do not approach!” Russians often draw a second missile on rescuers ”shouts an overwhelming policeman.
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Source: Lemonde