As Ukraine recognized six months since Moscow's invasion on a sombre independence day overshadowed by warnings of further "brutal" attacks, Russia launched a rocket attack on a railway station that left at least 50 people injured and 22 dead.
The rockets hit a train in a station in the eastern Ukrainian town of Chaplyne, roughly 145 kilometres west of Donetsk, according to Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the president of Ukraine, who spoke to the UN late on Wednesday.
According to a message on his Telegram channel, Kirill Timoshenko, the deputy head of the Ukrainian presidential administration, an 11-year-old child was killed in the attack.
On the day of its independence and the anniversary of six months of full-scale conflict with Moscow, Ukraine had been on high alert as friends praised its fortitude and offered continuous assistance and the White House presented nearly $3 billion (€3bn) in additional military aid for Kyiv.
In the early morning hours of February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin began a full-scale invasion of pro-western Ukraine, sending troops, tanks, missiles, and warplanes over the border in a significant escalation of the eight-year struggle between the erstwhile allies.
Zelenskyy told the UN Security Council via video that the deadly attack occurred in Chaplyne, a town of around 3,500 inhabitants in the central Dnipropetrovsk region. A further report from the president's office stated that an 11-year-old child was killed by rocket fire in the settlement earlier in the day.
Around the national holiday that honours Ukraine's declaration of independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, the country has been bracing itself for particularly fierce attacks. Additionally, the war's halfway point was on Wednesday.
Authorities in Kyiv have outlawed big gatherings in the city through Thursday out of concern for possible rocket attacks days before Independence Day.
During his most recent visit to Kyiv on Wednesday, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson hailed Ukrainians for “fighting with steel and with courage to defend their homes and their families, and to preserve their right to decide their own destiny ... However long it takes, the United Kingdom will stand with Ukraine”.