Ukraine says soldiers among 51 killed in Poltava missile attack

Ukrainian MP Oleksiy Goncharenko told the BBC the two minutes between the air raid siren in Poltava and the missiles landing was “nothing”.

“You just imagine you’re on the sixth floor of some building and you need to run away downstairs. Is it realistic that you can do this in two minutes?” he said.

“Just imagine this life and like this several times per day. We can’t continue like this. It’s just not fair.”

In a statement on Telegram which confirmed the deaths of the military personnel, Ukraine’s land forces said an investigation was under way to establish whether enough was done to protect those in the facility the missile hit.

It confirmed additional measures to ensure safety at military facilities will be increased.

One Poltava resident, Olena Serdyuk, said: “The air raid alert started in just a minute, and then there were two explosions.

“At home, we immediately ran into the bathroom with the child, but then gathered ourselves”. She added that there is no bomb shelter “in our radius”, and it “takes a long time to run somewhere”.

Another local, Anastasiia Artyukh, heard “two very strong explosions” and called the situation “really scary”.

“There is a house nearby, everything was blown out, all the windows. We don’t have a basement in our house. So our only option was to sit [and wait].”