After two weeks of relative calm, Russian forces on Friday destroyed a factory that allegedly produced one of the missiles used to sink the Moskva warship in the Black Sea. The bomber struck shortly after noon in front of a Kremlin-held vengeance post on the Russian flagship. Then on Saturday, Russian missiles reportedly hit a military hardware factory in the Darnytskyi district of the capital. “They are making us pay for the destruction of Moscow,” Andrei Sizov, a 47-year-old owner of a nearby wood workshop, told AFP. The recent attacks in the Ukrainian capital are one of the first since Russian invading forces began withdrawing from areas around Kyiv. The city, day by day, was trying to return to normalcy. Many shops began to reopen and citizens took to the streets again. Prior to the invasion, the greater Kiev area had a busy population of 3.5 million and the streets were crowded with singers and bars. But after the first bombings, the capital began to look like a ghost town. By the end of March, half of Kiev’s population had moved west. For weeks the remote towns of Irpin and Bucha had been occupied and bombed, with thousands of civilians killed and hundreds buried in mass graves. But in early April, Russian forces began to withdraw. However, as thousands of civilians who had fled the invasion prepared to return, Mayor Vitali Klitschko warned on Saturday that the new airstrikes meant it was not the time to return. Vitali Klitschko, mayor of Kiev. Photo: Anadolu Agency / Getty Images “Once again, I appeal to everyone: do not ignore the air alarms!” said Klitschko on 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 sudden turn of events is inextricably linked to the destruction of the jewel of the Russian fleet by Ukrainian forces during a battle operation on the Black Sea on Wednesday – a blow to Vladimir Putin’s war plans and the prestige of his army. At first, the Kremlin tried to downplay the incident, claiming that an accident had set the ship on fire. He then said that the damage had been reduced and the ship was towed to the port of Sevastopol. Finally, late on Thursday, the ministry announced that the ship sank in “stormy seas”. The Kremlin did not provide details on possible casualties among the 510th Moscow crew and did not release photos of the wrecked ship or its survivors, but on Russian television, hosts and experts spoke out strongly about the elimination of “Ukraine” after the destruction of the flagship. But Kyiv is not the only one paying the price for the destruction of Moscow and the humiliation of Russia. All of Ukraine is preparing for retaliatory attacks by Russia after the “significant and symbolic” sinking of the flagship. Air raid sirens sounded overnight in 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. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said up to 3,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed since Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, with no total civilian casualties yet. Meanwhile, the fate of Mariupol hangs on a thread. For weeks, the port city in southeastern Ukraine has been facing a humanitarian catastrophe, besieged by Russian tanks moving toward the center, hour by hour, exploding one at a time, leveling everything in their path. The battle for control continues. If Moscow occupied Mariupol, home to 400,000 people before the invasion, it would be the first major city to fall. “The situation is very difficult” in Mariupol, Zelensky told the Ukrainska Pravda news portal on Saturday. “Our soldiers are out. the injured are excluded. “There is a humanitarian crisis. Nevertheless, the children are defending themselves.”
