Kyiv, Ukraine (AP) – Russia targeted Western military supplies to Ukraine on Sunday, launching air strikes on Kyiv that it claims destroyed tanks donated from abroad. Ukraine said the missiles hit a train service. Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that any Western supplies of long-range missile systems to Ukraine will force Moscow to strike “targets we have not yet struck.”
The secret threat of military escalation by the Russian leader does not specify what the new targets could be, but comes days after the United States announced plans to provide $ 700 million in security aid to Ukraine. These weapons include four precision-guided medium-range missile systems, as well as helicopters, Javelin anti-tank weapons systems, radars, tactical vehicles and more.
Military analysts say Russia hopes to take over Ukraine’s eastern Donbass industrial region, where Russian-backed separatists have been fighting the Ukrainian government since 2014, before any US weapons could backfire. The Pentagon said last week it would take at least three weeks to bring American weapons to the battlefield.
Russian airstrikes in the eastern town of Druzhkivka destroyed buildings and left at least one person dead, a Ukrainian official said on Sunday. Residents described waking up to the sound of rocket fire, with rubble and glass falling around them.
“It was like a horror movie,” said Svetlana Romashkina.
Donetsk Governor Pavlo Kirilenko called on the city’s residents to leave, saying on Facebook that the destroyed buildings could be rebuilt, but “we will not be able to bring back the lost lives.”
Russia’s Defense Ministry said precision air-launched missiles were used to destroy workshops in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, including Druzhkovka, which were repairing damaged Ukrainian military equipment.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s General Staff said Russian forces had fired five X-22 cruise missiles from the Caspian Sea to Kyiv, and one had been destroyed by the air defenses. Four other missiles hit “infrastructure”, but Ukraine said there were no casualties.
The operator of the Energoatom nuclear power plant said that a cruise missile was buzzing near the Yuzhnoukrainsk nuclear power plant, 350 kilometers (220 miles) south, and warned of the possibility of a nuclear accident if even one missile fragment hit the plant.
In the Telegram application, the Russian Ministry of Defense said that high-precision long-range air-to-air missiles were used on the outskirts of Kyiv, destroying T-72 tanks delivered from Eastern European countries and other armored vehicles at a train repair shop. .
But the head of Ukraine’s railway system rejected claims that there were tanks inside. Alexander Kamishin said four missiles hit the car repair shop in Darnitsa, but no military equipment was stored there. He said the site was used to repair gondolas and grain carriers.
“Russia has lied again,” he wrote in the Telegram. “Their (Russia’s) real goal is the economy and the civilian population. They want to block our ability to export Ukrainian products. “
In a televised interview Sunday, Putin focused on Western arms supplies to Ukraine, saying they were aimed at prolonging the conflict.
“All this turmoil over additional arms supplies, I think, has only one goal: to prolong the armed conflict as much as possible,” Putin said. He insisted that such supplies were unlikely to change the military situation for the Ukrainian government, which he said only offset losses from such missiles.
If Kyiv receives longer-range missiles, he added, Moscow will “draw the appropriate conclusions and use our abundant means of destruction to strike at targets we have not yet struck.”
The United States has stopped offering Ukraine longer-range weapons that could fire deep into Russia. But the four medium-range, high-range artillery missile systems in the security package include wheeled launchers that allow troops to hit a target and then retreat quickly – which could be useful against Russian artillery on the battlefield.
The Spanish daily El Pais reported on Sunday that Spain plans to deliver anti-aircraft missiles and up to 40 Leopard 2 A4 battle tanks to Ukraine. The Spanish Ministry of Defense did not comment on the report.
A rising pillar of smoke filled the air with a pungent odor in Kyiv’s eastern Darnytskyi district above the charred, blackened remains of a warehouse-type structure. Soldiers blocked a nearby road leading to a large railway park.
Prior to Sunday’s morning attack, Kyiv had not faced such Russian air strikes since UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ April 28 visit. The attack sparked airstrikes and showed that Russia still has the ability and desire to strike the heart of Ukraine, despite redirecting its efforts to seize Ukrainian territory to the east.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24 resulted in countless tens of thousands of civilian and military deaths, drove millions from their homes, sparked severe sanctions against Putin’s government and allies, and stifled exports of critical wheat and other cereals from Ukraine through Black Sea ports. . This has caused bread shortages and rising prices, which are hurting low-income countries in Africa, the Middle East and beyond.
In recent days, Russian forces have focused on capturing the eastern Ukrainian cities of Severodonetsk and Lisichansk. On Sunday, they continued their pressure with rocket and air strikes on towns and villages in Donbass.
The UK military said in a daily intelligence update that Ukraine’s counterattacks in Severodonetsk “probably blunt the operational momentum of Russian forces, previously accumulated through the concentration of troops and firepower.” Russian forces have previously made a series of advances in the city, but Ukrainian fighters have withdrawn in recent days.
The statement also said that the Russian military relied in part on the reserve forces of the Luhansk separatists.
“These troops are poorly equipped and trained and lack heavy equipment compared to regular Russian units,” the intelligence update said, adding that the move “shows a desire to limit the casualties suffered by regular Russian forces.”
Away from the battlefield, Ukraine’s national footballers are hoping to secure a place in the World Cup when the team faces Wales later Sunday in Cardiff.
On the diplomatic front, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is leaving for Serbia for talks with President Alexander Vucic, followed by a visit to Turkey on Tuesday, where the war in Ukraine is expected to be a key topic.
Turkey is trying to work with the UN and warring parties to clear the way for Ukrainian grain to be shipped to Turkish ports, although the deal did not seem inevitable.
Ukrainian authorities say Ukraine and Russia have exchanged the bodies of slain soldiers in the first officially confirmed exchange. Ukraine said on Saturday each country had exchanged 160 bodies two days earlier on the front line in the southern Zaporozhye region.
Russian authorities have not commented on the exchange.
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Follow the coverage of the AP for the war in Ukraine
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