The alarming number came shortly after the Russian Defense Ministry promised to intensify the missile attacks in Kyiv in response to the alleged Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory. This ominous warning followed the astonishing loss of Moscow’s flagship in the Black Sea, which a senior US defense official said on Friday had been hit by at least one Ukrainian missile. Amid its threats, Moscow is continuing preparations for a new offensive in eastern Ukraine. Fighting also continues in the hit southern port city of Mariupol, where locals say they saw Russian troops digging corpses. In the northeastern city of Kharkiv, a residential bombing killed seven people, including a 7-month-old child, and injured 34, according to Governor Oleh Sinehubov. Around Kyiv, Andriy Nebytov, head of the capital’s regional police force, said the bodies had been abandoned on the streets or temporarily buried. He cited police figures showing that 95% had died from gunfire. “So we understand that under the (Russian) occupation, people were just executed on the streets,” Nebitov said. More bodies are found every day, under rubble and in mass graves, he added. The largest number of victims was found in Bouha, where there were more than 350, he said. According to Nebytov, employees of utilities in Bucha collected and buried corpses in the suburbs of Kiev while remaining under Russian control. The Russian troops, he added, “locate” people who expressed strong pro-Ukrainian views. More violence could be inflicted on Kyiv after Russian authorities accused Ukraine of injuring seven people and damaging about 100 apartment buildings in airstrikes in Bryansk, an area bordering Ukraine. Authorities in another Russian border area also reported Ukrainian bombing on Thursday. “The number and scale of rocket attacks on objects in Kyiv will increase in response to the nationalist regime in Kiev committing terrorist attacks or diversions on Russian soil,” said Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov. Russia has used missiles to destroy a facility for repairing and manufacturing missile systems in Kyiv, Konashenkov said. Ukrainian officials have not confirmed targets in Russia and the reports could not be verified by an independent. However, Ukrainian officials said their forces had hit a key Russian warship with missiles. A senior U.S. defense official has denied the allegations, saying the United States now believes Moskva was hit by at least one, and possibly two, Neptune missiles. Earlier, the Pentagon said it could not confirm the cause of the large fire on the cruise missile. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an evaluation of information. Neptune is an anti-ship missile recently developed by Ukraine, based on an older Soviet design. The Moskva, named after the Russian capital, sank while being towed to the port on Thursday after suffering severe damage. Although Moscow did not recognize any attack, saying only that a fire caused the ship to explode ammunition, the loss of the ship represents a major victory for Ukraine and a symbolic defeat for Russia. Moskva was capable of carrying 16 long-range cruise missiles. The last time such a large warship sank was in 1982, when a British submarine torpedoed an Argentine Navy cruiser called the ARA General Belgrano during the Falkland War, killing more than 300 sailors. The sinking reduces Russia’s firepower in the Black Sea, although military analysts have disagreed on the significance of the event for the course of the war. Either way, the loss was seen as emblematic of Moscow’s fate in a seven-week invasion that was widely seen as a historic blunder after the withdrawal from the Kiev region and much of northern Ukraine. “A ‘flagship’ Russian warship is a remarkable diving site. We have another diving spot in the Black Sea now. “I will definitely visit the wreck after our victory in the war,” Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov wrote on Twitter on Friday. In his speech Thursday night, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told Ukrainians that they should be proud to have survived 50 days of Russian attack when the invaders “gave us a maximum of five.” Russia’s warning of new airstrikes did not prevent Kiev residents from taking advantage of a sunny and slightly warmer spring Friday as the weekend approached. More people than usual took to the streets, walked dogs, rode electric scooters and walked hand in hand. In a central park, a small group of people, including a woman dressed in a Ukrainian flag, danced to the music of a portable speaker. A new bombing could mean a return to the constant mourning of air raid sirens heard in the early days of the invasion and terrible nights housed in subway stations. The rough signs of pre-war life reappeared in the capital after Russian troops failed to occupy the city and retreated to focus on eastern Ukraine, leaving behind evidence of possible war crimes. News of Moscow has overshadowed Russian claims of progress in the southern port city of Mariupol, which Moscow forces have blocked since the first days of the invasion. The small number of Ukrainian defenders withstood a siege that cost the trapped and hungry civilians dearly. The mayor of Mariupol said this week that more than 10,000 civilians had been killed and that the death toll could rise to more than 20,000. Other Ukrainian officials said they expected to find evidence in Mariupol of atrocities against civilians, such as those discovered in Bukha and other cities outside Kyiv. Mariupol City Council said Friday that locals said they saw Russian troops digging up corpses buried in backyards and not allowing new burials of “people killed by them.” “Why the exhumation is taking place and where the bodies will be transported is unknown,” the council told the Telegram messaging app. Fighting continues in industrial areas and in the port, and Russia has for the first time used the Tu-22M3 long-range bomber to attack the city, said Oleksandr Motuzyanyk, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Defense Ministry. The capture of Mariupol will allow Russian forces in the south, which arrived through the annexed Crimean peninsula, to fully connect with troops in the Donbas region, the eastern industrial heart of Ukraine, and the target of the impending attack. Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian forces in Donbas since 2014, the same year Russia occupied Crimea from Ukraine. Russia has recognized the independence of two rebel-held areas of the region. Although it is uncertain when Russia will launch the full-scale campaign, a Ukrainian regional official said on Friday that seven people had been killed and 27 wounded when Russian forces opened fire on buses carrying civilians to the northern village of Borovaya. Kharkiv. The claim could not be independently verified. Dmitry Tsubenko, a spokesman for the regional prosecutor’s office, told Ukraine’s Suspilne news website that Ukrainian authorities had opened criminal proceedings in connection with a suspected “violation of the laws and customs of war, combined with premeditated murder.” A huge explosion also shook the eastern city of Kramatorsk, where a rocket attack on a train station a week earlier killed more than 50 people as thousands heard warnings of evacuation in the Donbas area waiting to leave. Associated Press reporters in Kramatorsk heard the sound of a rocket or a rocket and then the explosion, followed by sirens mourning on Friday. It was not immediately clear what hit or if there were any casualties. A day earlier, a factory in the same city was hit by an airstrike. The Russian Defense Ministry said that Russian strikes in the Kharkiv region “cleared a group of mercenaries from a Polish private military company” of up to 30 people and “liberated” an iron and steel factory in Mariupol. The claims could not be independently verified.
Fisch reported from Kramatorsk. Burns was mentioned by Washington. Associated Press reporters around the world contributed to this report. Follow the AP coverage for the war at
