KYIV, March 1, 2022 (BSS/AFP) - An apparent Russian airstrike aimed

at Kyiv's main television tower killed five people on Tuesday,
officials said, knocking out some broadcasts but leaving the structure
intact.

  After a blast sounded around the city and smoke was seen rising in
the Babi Yar district, the emergencies service said five people were
also injured in the attack.

  Ukrainian officials released footage of charred bodies and cars
damaged by the strike, which came during a surge of Russian attacks on
Ukraine's second city of Kharkiv.

  "To the world: what is the point of saying 'never again' for 80
years, if the world stays silent when a bomb drops on the same site of
Babi Yar," Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky asked in a tweet.

  "Once again, these barbarians are murdering the victims of Holocaust!"

  The tower is based near the Babi Yar ravine where more than 30,000
were slaughtered by the Nazis during World War II.

  The tragedy is commemorated by a memorial statue and is a site of
pilgrimage for many Jews.

  Ukrainian officials accused Moscow of threatening the memorial.

  Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said the attack damaged the tower's
transformer substation, which provides it with electricity, as well as
some of its hardware.

  The interior ministry said that back-up systems would be put into
operation to restore programming.

  Most Ukrainian channels appeared to be functioning normally about an
hour after the strike.

  Earlier, the Russian defence ministry spokesman had said that
Moscow's forces would hit technological infrastructure in Kyiv "to
suppress information attacks on Russia".

  But the targets he cited -- the SBU security service and the army
psychological operations unit -- did not include the civilian-run
television tower in the capital.