Ammonia leak in eastern Ukraine after Russian airstrike; Moscow calls it ‘planned provocation’ by Kyiv

Lviv: Ukraine's prosecutor general has said that a Russian shell struck a chemical plant outside the city of Sumy a little after 3 AM on  Monday, causing a leak in a 50-tonne tank of ammonia that took hours to contain.  

The ammonia leak at the chemical plant in Sumy contaminated an area with a radius of more than 5 kilometres (3 miles), officials said. Russian military spokesman Igor Konashenkov, however, claimed that the leak was a ‘planned provocation’ by Ukrainian forces to falsely accuse Russia of a chemical attack.

Konashenkov also said an overnight cruise missile strike hit a Ukrainian military training centre in the Rivne region. He said 80 foreign and Ukrainian troops were killed.

Vitaliy Koval, the head of the Rivne regional military administration, confirmed a twin Russian missile strike on a training centre there early Monday but offered no details about injuries or deaths. 

The Sumykhimprom plant is on the eastern outskirts of the city, which has a population of about 263,000 and has been regularly shelled by Russian troops in recent weeks.

Authorities urged people in Sumy to breathe through gauze bandages soaked in citric acid.