Russia launched airstrikes in Kyiv on Sunday, claiming to have destroyed foreign-donated tanks, as President Vladimir Putin warned that any Western delivery of long-range rocket systems to Ukraine would cause Moscow to target “things that we haven’t yet struck.”
The Russian leader’s cryptic threat of a military escalation didn’t specify what the new targets might be, but it comes just days after the US announced plans to provide $700 million in security assistance to Ukraine, which includes four precision-guided medium-range rocket systems, helicopters, Javelin anti-tank weapon systems, radars, tactical vehicles, spare parts, and more?
Military analysts believe Russia is aiming to take control of the troubled eastern Donbas region, where Russia-backed separatists have been fighting the Ukrainian government for years, before any weaponry that could alter the tide arrive. The Pentagon warned earlier this week that getting the precision US weapons and trained troops onto the battlefield would take at least three weeks.
Russian military shelled railway stations and other infrastructure in Kyiv early Sunday, after weeks of eerie silence. Energoatom, the operator of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants, claimed a cruise missile buzzed the Pivdennoukrainsk nuclear power station, some 350 kilometers (220 miles) south of Kyiv, on its approach to the capital, emphasizing the dangers of such a close call.
Ukraine provided no quick proof that Russian airstrikes had destroyed tanks.
Since the visit of United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on April 28, Kyiv had not experienced any such strikes. The early morning attack sent off air raid sirens and demonstrated that Russia still had the means and determination to strike at Ukraine’s center, despite forsaking a broader push across the country in favor of concentrating its efforts in the east.
The Russian Defense Ministry said high-precision, long-range air-launched missiles were utilized in a Telegram post. The strikes on the outskirts of Kyiv according to the report destroyed T-72 tanks supplied by Eastern European countries as well as other armored vehicles housed in a car-repair shop.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24 resulted in tens of thousands of civilian and military deaths, displaced millions, sparked massive sanctions against Putin’s government and allies, and stifled critical wheat and other grain exports from Ukraine through Black Sea ports, limiting access to bread and other products in Africa, the Middle East, and beyond.
In a Sunday television interview, Putin slammed Western weapons deliveries to Ukraine, claiming that they are intended to prolong the conflict.
“In my judgment, all this hoopla over new weapons delivery has only one goal: to prolong the armed confrontation as much as possible,” Putin said, referring to the US plans to supply Kyiv with multiple launch rocket systems. He asserted that such supply would have no impact on the Ukrainian government, which he claimed was only compensating for the loss of similar-range rockets they already had.
He went on to say that if Kyiv acquires longer-range rockets, Moscow will “draw suitable conclusions and utilize our weapons of destruction, which we have plenty of, to strike at those objects that we haven’t yet destroyed.”
Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on the Telegram messaging app that the rockets reached Kyiv’s Darnytski and Dniprovski neighborhoods, confirming the Kremlin’s recently downgraded goal of capturing the entire Donbas. For the past eight years, separatists supported by Russia have fought Ukrainian soldiers in the Donbas and formed self-proclaimed republics.
Russian forces have been concentrating their efforts in recent days on conquering the city of Sievierodonetsk.
In Kyiv’s eastern Darnystki area, a towering pillar of smoke filled the air with an unpleasant odor, and the charred, blackened ruins of a warehouse-type structure were smoldering. Military authorities had prohibited the taking of photographs, police near the scene informed reporters. Soldiers also closed up a route leading to a huge train yard in the vicinity.
On Telegram, Serhiy Leshchenko, an assistant in President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office, reported that the sites targeted included facilities for the state rail business, Ukrzaliznytsia. According to the Air Force Command on Facebook, the cruise missiles looked to have been launched from a Tu-95 bomber flying over the Caspian Sea. According to the report, one missile was shot down by air defense units.
One cruise missile came perilously close to the Pivdennoukrainsk nuclear power station, according to Energoatom. The missile “flew catastrophically low,” according to the report, and Russian forces “still don’t grasp that even the tiniest fragment of a missile that can hit a running power unit can produce a nuclear catastrophe and radiation release.”
In other news, Russian forces maintained their offensive in eastern Ukraine, launching missiles and airstrikes on cities and villages in the Luhansk region, as the war entered its 100th day.
“Airstrikes by Russian Ka-52 helicopters were carried out in the regions of Girske and Myrna Dolyna, by Su-25 aircraft – on Ustynivka,” Luhansk governor Serhiy Haidai stated on Telegram, while Lysychansk was targeted by a missile from the Tochka-U complex.
In Girske, 13 dwellings were damaged, while in Lysychansk, five were damaged. Oleksandr Goncharenko, the mayor of Kramatorsk in the east, reported another airstrike. According to him, no one was killed in the incident, but two of the city’s businesses suffered “serious damage.”
Ukraine’s General Staff accused Russian forces of using phosphorus munitions in the Kharkiv region’s Cherkaski Tyshky hamlet on Sunday morning. It was not possible to independently verify the assertion.
Strikes in Kyiv were also confirmed in the early hours of Sunday, according to the update. The message did not specify which infrastructural sites in Kyiv were targeted.
Russian forces are continuing assault operations in Sievierodonetsk, one of two significant cities in the Luhansk region of the Donbas that have yet to be taken, according to the General Staff. According to the report, the Russians hold the eastern portion of the city and are attempting to encircle Ukrainian soldiers in the area by “cutting off vital supply routes.”
Ukrainian counterattacks in Sieverodonetsk, according to the UK military’s daily intelligence update, are “likely blunting the operational momentum Russian forces had obtained from concentrating combat formations and weaponry.” Russian forces have previously made a series of breakthroughs in the city, but Ukrainian fighters have recently pushed back.
Russia’s military was also alleged to be relying on rebels’ reserve forces in the Luhansk region, according to the statement.
The intelligence update stated that “these troops are poorly equipped and trained, and lack heavy equipment in compared to regular Russian units,” and that “this strategy certainly implies a desire to minimize deaths sustained by regular Russian forces.”
Far from the war, Ukraine’s national soccer team will face Wales in Cardiff later Sunday in the hopes of securing a World Cup berth.
On the diplomatic front, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was scheduled to visit Serbia early this week for discussions with President Aleksandar Vucic, followed by a visit to Turkey on Tuesday, during which the Russian ambassador is likely to address Ukraine with his Turkish counterpart.
Turkey has been attempting to engage with the United Nations and the fighting countries to smooth the path for Ukrainian grain to be delivered to Turkish ports, though no agreement looked to be near.
In response to Sunday’s missile assaults, a Ukrainian presidential adviser encouraged European nations to retaliate with “more sanctions, more armaments.”
Mykhailo Podolyak referred to remarks made by French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday, in which Macron said that while Putin had made a “historic error” by invading Ukraine, world powers should not “humiliate Russia” in order to find a diplomatic exit once the conflict stopped.
Ukraine and Russia exchanged bodies of killed troops this week, according to Ukrainian authorities, in the first publicly verified transfer. On the front line in the southern Zaporizhzhia area, sections of which are under Russian control, each side exchanged 160 bodies on Thursday, according to Ukraine’s Ministry for Reintegration of Occupied Territories. The exchange has elicited no response from Russian officials.
Pope Francis made one of his strongest demands for a cease-fire and peace talks in Ukraine at the Vatican, warning leaders not to “drag the world to ruins.” Don’t let the planet fall apart.” More than 100 days after the Russian invasion, Francis made the plea at his usual Sunday blessing from a window overlooking St. Peter’s Square, pleading with leaders to heed “the anguished cries of the people who suffer.”