Russia’s defense minister yesterday ordered his troops to carry out strikes “in all operational sectors” of Ukrainedays after president Vladimir Putin warned that Russia had “not seriously begun its efforts” as the war neared its five-month mark.
The US Pentagon estimates that as many as 150 civilians have been killed in the past two weeks as a result of Russian airstrikes.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has issued an air raid siren across the country as Russia ramps up attacks beyond the front lines. About 70 percent of Russian attacks have targeted non-military infrastructure, a spokesman for Ukraine’s defense ministry said.
Since Friday, rockets have hit residential areas in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro, the southern city of Mykolaiv and the eastern cities of Chuhuiv and Nikopol.
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said yesterday that the United States had information that Russian officials recently visited an airport in Iran twice to investigate drones they are considering buying for the war.
The White House released satellite images that it said showed unmanned aerial vehicles in flight while a transport plane belonging to a Russian delegation was at the airport. Iran on Friday dismissed allegations that it planned to supply Russia with hundreds of drones as “baseless”.
Missile strikes reported yesterday in the eastern Ukrainian regions of Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk are the latest in a series of Russian attacks that led to an air raid siren being issued in most of the country.
Rocket attacks on the town of Chuhuiv in the Kharkiv region killed three people: two men in their 60s and a 70-year-old woman, Governor Oleh Synehubov said on Telegram. Three others were hospitalized and an apartment building was destroyed, he said.
In the city of Nikopol, on the banks of the Dnipro River, Dnipropetrovsk governor Valentyn Reznichenko said more than 50 rockets fired on residential areas. The bodies of two people were recovered from the rubble of a house, he said, and a woman was taken to hospital.
After Russian airstrikes on shopping malls, apartments and other civilian facilities in Ukraine, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu yesterday ordered his troops to intensify attacks “in all operational sectors” in Ukraine.
The order was issued nine days after Putin’s July 7 warning that Russia “had not yet seriously started” its war against Ukraine.
According to the Russian Defense Ministry, Shoigu heard reports from the commanders of the southern and central military groups leading the war against Ukraine.
The ministry said Shoigu ordered to rule out the possibility of the Kiev regime carrying out massive rocket and artillery strikes on civilian infrastructure and residents.
A Russian naval-launched Kalibr missile attack on Vinnytsia, in western Ukraine, has killed at least 23 people, including three children. President Zelensky described the attack in Vinnytsia as “an overt act of terrorism” and called on the international community to designate Russia as a terrorist state.
Russia’s defense ministry said Friday that the Vinnytsia missile strike hit a cultural club for military officers, where it alleged Ukrainian military officials met with representatives of foreign weapons suppliers. It offered no proof. Earlier, the editor-in-chief of the state-controlled RT, Margarita Simonyan, said the attack was aimed at “Nazis”.
An air raid siren was issued late Friday across most of Ukraine, Mr Zelensky said, following Russian attacks on Vinnytsia and university buildings in Mykolaiv.
“At the moment, as I write this address, the air raid siren is on almost the entire territory of our state,” Zelensky said in a late-night speech. “We will certainly restore everything they destroyed.”
He said four people were in critical condition and four others were missing after a strike at a high-rise office building in Vinnytsia on Thursday injured dozens and killed three children, according to the country’s state emergency service. Further south, in the city of Mykolaiv, rockets hit two university facilities on Friday, the regional governor said.
“So I beg you again, please don’t ignore the air-raid sirens now,” Mr Zelensky told the nation. “Appropriate rules of conduct must be followed at all times. . . . We still have to fight. And we will fight.”
Russia’s attack on an industrial area in Dnipro, Ukraine’s third most populous city, left at least three dead and 15 injured, Ukrainian officials said Friday. The attack left cars on fire and smashed the windows of nearby residential buildings, local officials said.
Ukrainian forces have managed to repel Russian attacks after withdrawing from the city of Lysychansk earlier this month, the British Defense Ministry said in an intelligence update yesterday. Lysychansk was the last major metropolitan area controlled by Kiev in Luhansk, the country’s easternmost region.
But the withdrawal has allowed the Ukrainian military to shorten and straighten its defensive positions on the front lines, allowing it to focus its forces and fire on the Russian advance.
This has “played an important role in reducing Russia’s momentum,” the ministry said.
Kremlin troops have had an operational hiatus this week, though they have launched small-scale offensives across the front lines, according to the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War.
They now seem to be coming out of that rest period, the think tank said on Friday.
On the diplomatic front, Germany will provide Moldova with $40 million (€39.6 million) in direct budget support to help the Eastern European country grapple with the fallout from Russia’s war in Ukraine.
“We may not have the power to stop the war in Ukraine today or tomorrow because of Russia’s brutality.
“But we do have the resources to help a democratic country avoid being crushed by the effects of this war,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock tweeted Friday after a conference in Bucharest, Romania, in support of Moldova .
The aid plan, which Ms Baerbock described as “a direct grant to support the poorest families in the country,” will go to the German parliament for approval, she told the conference.
She said Moldova, which borders Ukraine and is hosting an influx of refugees from that country, was feeling the “economic shockwaves” of the conflict.
Fears of a war spillover also grew in Moldova earlier this year when explosions were reported in the Russia-allied breakaway region of Transnistria and a Russian commander suggested Moscow was aiming to create a road through southern Ukraine there. (© Washington Post)
© Washington Post