Live updates | Ukrainian prez accuses Russia of ‘barbarity’

KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russian forces on Thursday night struck the Chernihiv region and hit schools.

“Of course, the Russian state is in such a state that any education only gets in its way. But what can be achieved by destroying Ukrainian schools? All Russian commanders who give such orders are simply sick, and incurable.”

He condemned what he suggested were senseless attacks on the refinery in the central Ukrainian industrial hub of Kremenchuk, on the Zaporizhzhia region and the Donbas.

“They are cowards, and they try to hide the truth behind missiles, airstrikes and artillery shelling,” he said in his nightly video address to the nation. “Therefore our task is to fight until we achieve our goals in this war: to free our land, our people and secure our security.”

Noting that Thursday is International Nurses Day, Zelenskyy thanked Ukraine’s nurses and other medical workers for their part in the fight and urged all Ukrainians to do the same. He said since the invasion began on Feb. 24, the Russian military had damaged 570 medical facilities, fully destroying 101 hospitals.

“What is that? It’s stupidity. It’s barbarity. It’s the self-destruction of Russia as a state that anyone in the world could see as a cultured nation.”

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KEY DEVELOPMENTS IN THE RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR:

— Finland’s leaders in favor of applying for NATO membership

— ′ This tears my soul apart ’: A Ukrainian boy and a killing

— Protesters vent fury at French company for staying in Russia

— Ukrainian circus comes to town, and stays in Italy, amid war

Follow all AP stories on Russia’s war on Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

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OTHER DEVELOPMENTS:

KYIV, Ukraine — Rocket attacks on Ukraine’s central Poltava region on Thursday were “perhaps the most intense for the duration of the war,” the regional governor said that same day.

“Today’s shelling of the Poltava region is perhaps the largest during the course of this full-scale war,” Dmitry Lunin wrote in a Telegram post. “12 Russian missiles hit the infrastructure in (the city of) Kremenchuk; most of them hit an oil refinery that was not operational anyway.”

“Rescuers are putting out a fire at the refinery. Luckily, no one was hurt,” Lunin added.

Kremenchuk is on the Dnieper River, south of Kyiv and north of Dnipro and Zaporizhzhia. The river, flowing north to south, divides Ukraine in half. In the south, it flows through Kherson before emptying into the Black See.

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KYIV, Ukraine — At least two civilians died Thursday as a result of a shelling attack on the outskirts of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, local authorities said that same day.

“As a result of the shelling, two people were killed, four more were injured, two of whom are doctors. All these people are civilians,” Vyacheslav Zadorenko, the mayor of the suburban town of Derhachi, wrote in a Telegram post.

He added that the attack also damaged a building housing a humanitarian aid unit, municipal offices, and hospital facilities.

“None of the sites that came under shelling, not to mention private houses that are destroyed daily, had anything to do with…