Russian forces have accelerated scattered attacks on Kyiv, western Ukraine and after Saturday as an explosive reminder to Ukrainians and their Western supporters that the entire country remains under threat despite Russia’s efforts to launch a new offensive in the east.
Horrified by the loss of its flagship in the Black Sea and outraged by the alleged Ukrainian aggression on Russian territory, the Russian military command has warned of renewed missile strikes on the Ukrainian capital. Officials in Moscow said they were targeting military sites, a statement that was repeated – and refuted by witnesses – during the 52 days of war.
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But the fee goes much deeper. Every day brings new discoveries to civilian victims of an invasion that shattered European security. As Russia prepared for the expected offensive, a mother wept over her 15-year-old son’s body after rockets hit a residential area in Kharkiv’s northeastern city. One baby and at least eight others were killed, officials said.
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In the Kyiv region, Ukrainian authorities said they had found the bodies of more than 900 civilians, most of whom had been shot dead after Russian troops withdrew two weeks ago. Smoke rose again from the capital early Saturday, when Mayor Vitali Klitschko announced a strike that killed one person and injured several.
The mayor advised residents who had fled the city earlier in the war not to return.
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“We do not rule out further strikes on the capital,” Klitschko said. “If you have the opportunity to stay a little longer in cities where it’s safer, do it.”
It was not immediately clear from the ground what was hit during Saturday’s strike in Kiev’s Darnytskyi district. The vast neighborhood in the southeastern part of the capital contains a mix of Soviet-style apartment buildings, newer shopping malls and large shopping malls, industrial areas and railway facilities.
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Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said an armored vehicle plant had been attacked. He did not specify the location of the plant, but there is one in the Darnytskyi region.
He said the plant was among many Ukrainian military sites affected by “high-precision, long-range weapons.” As the United States and Europe send new weapons to Ukraine, the strategy could focus on cracking Ukraine’s defenses before what is expected to be a full-scale Russian attack in the east.
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It was the second strike in the Kyiv region since the Russian military promised this week to step up missile strikes on the capital. Another hit a rocket plant on Friday as residents showed up for a walk, foreign embassies scheduled to reopen, and other preliminary signs of pre-war city life began to reappear after Russian troops failed to take Kyiv and withdraw them, for to concentrate on the east.
Kyiv was one of many targets on Saturday. The Ukrainian president’s office has reported rocket fire and shelling in the past 24 hours in eight regions across the country.
The governor of Lviv region in western Ukraine – far from the unstable east and a zone long considered a safe zone – announced air strikes in the region by Russian Su-35 planes that took off from neighboring Belarus.
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In apparent preparations for its attack in the east, the Russian military has stepped up shelling of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, in recent days. In addition to killing civilians, more than 50 people were injured in Friday’s attack, the Ukrainian president’s office said.
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An explosion believed to have been caused by a rocket sent to emergency workers climbing near an open market in Kharkov on Saturday, according to AP reporters at the scene. One person was killed and at least 18 were injured, according to rescuers.
“All the windows, all the furniture, everything is destroyed. And the door, too, “said the stunned resident Valentina Ulyanova.
In southeastern Ukraine, the shattered southern port city of Mariupol is surviving, but the situation is critical, the Ukrainian president’s office said. Russian forces have maintained a blockade there since the first days of the invasion, and a dwindling number of Ukrainian defenders have resisted the siege.
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The capture of Mariupol will allow Russian forces to the south, rising through the annexed Crimean peninsula, to fully connect with troops in the Donbass region, Ukraine’s eastern industrial core.
The battle for control of Mariupol is terribly costly for trapped and starving civilians. Locals say they have seen Russian soldiers dig up bodies from backyards and ban new burials. It was not clear why.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called for more Western weapons and a global embargo on Russian oil, and has accused Russian troops occupying Ukrainian cities of terrorizing civilians.
“The occupiers think it will be easier for them to control this territory. But they are very wrong. They are deluding themselves, “Zelenski said in his evening video address. “Russia’s problem is that it has not been accepted – and will never be accepted – by the entire Ukrainian people. Russia lost Ukraine forever.
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He also warned in an interview with CNN that “all countries in the world” must be prepared for the possibility of Russian President Vladimir Putin using tactical nuclear weapons, a major fear of the invasion of Ukraine on February 24.
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Zelensky estimated that between 2,500 and 3,000 Ukrainian soldiers died during the war and about 10,000 were wounded. Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office said on Saturday that at least 200 children had been killed since the start of the war and more than 360 had been injured.
The Russians also captured about 700 Ukrainian soldiers and more than 1,000 civilians, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk said on Saturday. Ukraine has about the same number of Russian troops as prisoners and intends to exchange with Moscow, but insists on the release of civilians “without any conditions,” Vereshchuk said.
Russia’s warning of intensified attacks on Kyiv came after Russian authorities accused Ukraine on Thursday of injuring seven people and damaging about 100 residential buildings by air strikes in Bryansk, a region bordering Ukraine.
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Ukrainian authorities have not confirmed the imposition of strike targets in Russia. However, they claimed responsibility for destroying a key Russian warship with missiles earlier this week, an important victory for Ukraine and a symbolic defeat for Russia.
“Moscow” sank on Thursday after severe damage. Moscow did not admit to the attack, saying only that the fire detonated ammunition on board.
The sinking reduced Russia’s firepower in the Black Sea and appears to symbolize Moscow’s wealth in an eight-week invasion widely seen as a historic mistake following Russia’s withdrawal from the Kyiv region and much of northern Ukraine.
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After the withdrawal, the bodies were abandoned on the streets of cities around Kyiv or temporarily buried. Andriy Nebitov, who heads the region’s police, quoted police as saying that 95% had died from gunshot wounds, saying they had “just been executed in the streets”.
More and more bodies are being found every day under rubble and in mass graves, he added, with more than 350 found in Bucha.
The diplomatic gap between Russia and the West deepened further on Saturday as Moscow …
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