Friday’s attack was widely seen by both sides as the Kremlin’s most significant blow to revenge since the sinking of Russia’s flagship in the Black Sea and a reminder that, despite the liberation from the occupants, the war in the Ukrainian capital is far away. from above. According to Ukraine’s state-owned weapons maker, the Vizar plant, located near Kiev International Airport, has produced Neptune cruise missiles, at least one of which Ukraine says was used to sink Moskva. The bomber struck shortly after noon in front of a police recruiting center in the Darnytsky district of the capital, followed by Russian forces. “There were five beatings,” Andrei Sizov, a 47-year-old owner of a nearby wood workshop, told AFP. “My employee was in the office and was thrown off his feet by the explosion. “They are making us pay for the destruction of Moscow.” Rescuers and doctors are working at the scene and the number of victims is being clarified. Russia’s Defense Ministry said it had used “high-precision, long-range” sea-based weapons to strike the plant. The attack on the Ukrainian capital is one of the first since Russian invading forces began withdrawing from areas around Kyiv, as the city, day by day, seemed to be returning to normal. Shops began to reopen and citizens took to the streets. Prior to the invasion, the greater Kiev area had a population of 3.5 million, but after the first bombings, the Ukrainian capital began to look like a ghost town, with one in two residents leaving the city. After the announcement that the Kiev region had been liberated by the Russians in what was described as Ukraine’s biggest victory in the war, thousands of residents who had fled after the invasion were preparing to return. However, after two weeks of relative calm in the city, on Saturday morning – after an attack on an armored car factory in the Ukrainian capital – the mayor of Kiev, Vitali Klitschko, warned residents that it was not the right time to return. “Once again, I appeal to everyone: please do not ignore the air alarms,” Klitschko told his official Telegram channel. “And those Kievites who left earlier and are already going to return to the capital, I ask you to stay away from it and stay in safer places.” The recent attacks in the capital came as no surprise as the Russian Defense Ministry promised to bomb targets in Kyiv in response to what it called “terrorist and sabotage” attacks on its territory carried out by Ukraine’s “nationalist regime”. The report concerned the destruction of a giant missile cruiser by Ukrainian forces during a combat operation against Russian vessels in the Black Sea on Wednesday. The ship’s ammunition deck exploded after being hit by two Neptune missiles, produced at the plant destroyed by Russian forces on Friday. The Kremlin did not provide details on possible casualties among the Moskva 510 crew and did not release photos of the wrecked ship, but on Russian television, hosts and experts spoke loudly about the elimination of “Ukraine” after its destruction. flagship. Air raid sirens sounded overnight in cities and towns such as Kharkiv, Zaporizhia, Donetsk, Kryvyi Rih and Dnipropetrovsk. Explosions were also heard in the western city of Lviv as the war intensified in the east, with Russia sending additional troops to try to oust Ukrainian forces from the Donbas. At least two Ukrainians were killed overnight in Russian airstrikes on cities in the east of the country. Officials reported casualties in Poltava, Severodonetsk and Lusichansk. Russia says it also hit a military vehicle repair plant in Mykolaiv, near the southern front. Volodymyr Zelensky said up to 3,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed since Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, with no total civilian casualties. In other developments:
Russia’s Foreign Ministry has banned Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Secretary of State Liz Tras, Secretary of Defense Ben Wallace and 10 other British politicians and members of the British government from entering the country. The move was made “in view of the unprecedented hostility of the British government, in particular the imposition of sanctions on senior Russian officials,” the ministry said in a statement. The battle for Mariupol continues. If Moscow occupied the city, which was home to 400,000 people before the invasion, it would be the first major city to fall. Nine humanitarian corridors have been agreed for Saturday, said the Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine Iryna Vereshchuk. Five of the nine evacuation corridors are from the east, in the Luhansk region of Ukraine, which according to local officials is under heavy bombardment.
