A Russian missile strike on the Ukrainian Military Institute of Communications in Poltava has at least killed 41 and wounded two hundreds. Other sources claim higher numbers.
Poltava is about 120 kilometer from the Russian border. The warning times after the missile launch was allegedly too short for everyone to reach the bunkers.
The Institute of Communications is training radio and radar operators. Its main multi-story building has been completely destroyed.
Britta Ellwanger, a (former?) Swedish volunteer with the Ukrainian army wrote that Swedish friends of hers, also volunteering with the Ukrainian army, were among those who died in the strike.
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Sweden had promised to gift two Swedish AWACS planes to Ukraine:
Sweden has announced sending its Saab 340B AEW&C (Airborne Early Warning and Control) aircraft to Kyiv, as per an announcement made by its defense ministry on May 29, 2024.
Given the nature of the Institute of Communications in Poltava it is likely that the Swedes were training Ukrainian operators for those.
One wonders why the training was not held elsewhere.
The Swedes should have remembered the history of that city:
The Battle of Poltava[e] (8 July 1709) was the decisive and largest battle of the Great Northern War. The Russian army under the command of Tsar Peter I defeated the Swedish army under the command of Carl Gustaf Rehnskiöld. The battle put an end to the status of the Swedish Empire as a European great power, as well as its eastbound expansion, and marked the beginning of Russian supremacy in eastern Europe.
Swedish and NATO attempts to change that status of Russia in eastern Europe more than 300 years after it had been achieved has ended in failure.