RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Number of heavily wounded Ukrainian soldiers up by 30% — ABC

The number of heavily wounded Ukrainian soldiers grew by 30% over the past few weeks, the ABC television reported citing a Ukrainian doctor.

Sergey Ryzhenko, a chief doctor of a hospital in the city of Dnepr (formerly Dnepropetrovsk), said between 40 and 100 heavily wounded soldiers are admitted to the facility daily, with between 50 and 100 surgical operations performed every day. He added that the majority of surgeries are amputations.

The channel quoted doctors as saying that, according to their information, around 30,000 Ukrainian servicemen are either killed or heavily wounded every month.

Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said at a conference call with the top brass of the Russian armed forces on Tuesday that "upon the instructions of western sponsors, the Kiev regime continues to send its soldiers to slaughter and looks for every possibility to replenish the Ukrainian army." "Naturally, it will not change the situation on the line of contact, but will only drag the military conflict," the minister added.

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Russian missiles hit hotel in Ukraine's Kharkiv, 11 injured -regional governor

Two Russian missiles struck a hotel late on Wednesday in the centre of Ukraine's second largest city, Kharkiv, injuring 11 people, one person seriously, the regional governor said.

Pictures posted online showed many of the windows blown out and balconies destroyed with large piles of rubble in the street below. Emergency teams made their way through gaping holes in the facade to sift through rubble inside.

Kharkiv Governor Oleh Synehubov, writing on Telegram, said the strike at about 10.30 p.m. local time involved S-300 missiles in the city's Kyiv district.

"Nine of those injured have been taken to medical facilities," Synehubov wrote on the Telegram messaging app. "One of them, a 35-year-old man, is in serious condition." Visiting Turkish journalists were among the injured, he wrote.

"One missile hit next to the hotel, right by a fence. The other one hit a nearby annex," Kharkiv Police Chief Volodymyr Tymoshko told public broadcaster Suspilne.

"Servicemen never stayed in this hotel and just about everyone in Kharkiv knows this. It was used by journalists."

Psychiatrist Mykhailo Bebeshko, a hotel guest, told Suspilne that he had heard no air raid alert before the missile struck.

"I was in the bathroom and that was what saved me. I fell, hit my head and then lay on the floor," he said.

"With a second explosion, all the doors were blown out and it was fortunate that I had been on the floor. And I shouted out to my colleagues: Everyone ok? Everyone still alive?"

Oleksandr Filchakov, head of the Kharkiv prosecutor's office, said in a video posted on Telegram, that 23 guests and eight staff were in the hotel when the missiles struck.

Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said several homes in the district had been damaged as well as a manufacturing plant and a car showroom.

The Russian Defence Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Tass/Reuters