Russian forces have resumed sporadic attacks in Kyiv, western Ukraine and later on Saturday in an explosive reminder to Ukrainians and their Western backers that the whole country remains under threat despite Russia turning to launch a new offensive in the east.
Drowned by the loss of its flagship in the Black Sea and outraged by the alleged Ukrainian aggression on Russian soil, the Russian military administration had warned a day earlier of new rocket attacks on the Ukrainian capital. Officials in Moscow said they were targeting military bases.
But the tax of war goes much deeper. Every day brings new discoveries of civilian victims of a war that has shaken European security and plunged East-West relations to new lows. In the Kiev region alone, Ukrainian authorities said they had found the bodies of more than 900 civilians, most of whom had been shot dead since Russian troops withdrew two weeks ago.
Russia’s preparations for the impending eastern offensive are producing more casualties. A mother wept over the body of her 15-year-old son in the partially besieged city of Kharkiv, where bombings escalated this week. Nine civilians were killed and more than 50 were injured Friday, the president’s office said.
A rocket-propelled grenade struck near an open-air market in Kharkov, Ukraine’s second largest city, on Saturday, according to firefighters and AP reporters at the scene. One person was killed and at least 18 were injured, according to rescue workers.
In the capital, smoke rose early Saturday from eastern Kyiv as Mayor Vitali Klitschko announced a strike in the Darnitsky district of the city. One person was killed and several others were injured, he said. The mayor advised residents who fled the city earlier in the war not to return for safety.
“The air defense forces are doing everything they can to protect us, but the enemy is insidious and ruthless,” Klitschko said.
It was not immediately clear from the ground what hit the attack. Darnytskyi is a large district at the southeastern tip of the capital, containing a mix of Soviet-style apartment buildings, newer shopping malls and department stores, industrial areas, and railroad facilities.
Earlier this week, the Russian military said it would strike in Kyiv, and Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said on Saturday that the target was an armored vehicle factory in the Ukrainian capital. He did not specify where the plant is located, but there is one in the Darnytskyi area.
He said he was among several Ukrainian military bases hit by “high-precision long-range air weapons”. As the US and Europe send new weapons to Ukraine, the strategy could be aimed at thwarting Ukraine’s defense before what is expected to be a full-scale Russian offensive in the east.
It was the second strike in the Kiev region in two days. Another bomber struck shortly after noon in front of a police recruiting center at Kisak, killing at least 20 people and wounding dozens more.
Kyiv was not the only target away from the eastern front on Saturday. The governor of the Lviv region in western Ukraine – an area long considered a safe haven – reported airstrikes in the area by Russian Su-35 jets taking off from neighboring Belarus. Governor Maksym Kozytskyy did not provide details about possible casualties or damage.
Fighting continued in the devastated southern port city of Mariupol, where Russian forces maintained a blockade from the first days of the invasion, and a small number of Ukrainian defenders resisted the siege.
The capture of Mariupol will allow Russian forces in the south, which came through the annexed Crimean peninsula, to fully connect with troops in the Donbas region, the eastern industrial heart of Ukraine.
The battle for control of the city had costly consequences for trapped and starving civilians. Locals said they saw Russian troops digging up corpses from residential yards and banning new burials.
“Why the exhumation is taking place and where the bodies will be transported is unknown,” the city council said Friday in a Telegram message application.
The mayor said this week that the death toll in the city could exceed 20,000. Other Ukrainian officials said they expected to find evidence in Mariupol of atrocities such as those discovered in Bukha and other cities outside Kyiv.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has accused Russian troops occupying parts of the southern Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions of terrorizing civilians and chasing anyone serving in the Ukrainian army or government.
“The occupiers believe this will make it easier for them to control this area. But they are very wrong. They are closing in on themselves,” Zelensky said in a video overnight. “Russia’s problem is that it is not accepted – and will never be accepted – by the entire Ukrainian people. Russia has lost Ukraine forever.”
He also warned in an interview with CNN that “all the countries of the world” should be prepared for the possibility of Russian President Vladimir Putin regularly using nuclear weapons in the war, an underlying fear since Putin launched it on February 24.
Zelensky estimated that 2,500 to 3,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed in the war and that about 10,000 had been wounded.
The Russians were holding about 700 Ukrainian soldiers and more than 1,000 civilians captive, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said in a televised address on Saturday. Vereshchuk said Ukraine was holding about the same number of Russian troops as prisoners and intended to negotiate an exchange with Moscow, but demanded the “unconditional release” of civilians.
Russia’s warning of escalating attacks in the capital came after Russian authorities on Thursday accused Ukraine of injuring seven people and damaging about 100 residential buildings in air strikes in Bryansk, an area bordering Ukraine.
Ukrainian officials have not confirmed targets in Russia and the reports could not be verified by an independent.
However, Ukrainian officials struck a key Russian warship with missiles earlier this week, in a major victory for Ukraine and a symbolic defeat for Russia.
The Moskva, named after the Russian capital, sank while being towed to the port on Thursday after severe damage. Moscow did not recognize any attack, saying only that a fire had exploded on the ship.
The sinking reduces Russia’s firepower in the Black Sea and seemed to symbolize Moscow’s fortunes in an eight-week invasion widely seen as a historic blunder following Russia’s withdrawal from the Kiev region and much of northern Ukraine.
After the retreat, the corpses were abandoned on the streets of cities around Kyiv or temporarily buried. Andriy Nebytov, who heads the district police force, cited 95% of the deaths as a result of the shooting.
“Consequently, we understand that under (Russian) occupation, people were simply executed on the streets,” Nebitov said.
More bodies are being found every day under rubble and in mass graves, he added, with the largest number found in Bhutan, more than 350. under Russian control. The Russian troops, he added, “locate” people who expressed strong pro-Ukrainian views.
It is uncertain when Russia will launch a full-scale campaign.
The diplomatic rift between Russia and the West deepened on Saturday as Moscow barred British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and a dozen other senior British officials from entering the country in response to British sanctions.
——
Chernov reported from Kharkov. Yesica Fisch in Kramatorsk, Ukraine, Robert Burns in Washington, D.C., and Associated Press reporters around the world contributed to this report.
—–
Getting in touch
Do you have questions about the attack in Ukraine? Email [email protected]
Include your name, location, and contact information if you would like to speak to a CTV News reporter. Your comments can be used in a CTVNews.ca story.
title: “Ukraine News Russia Renews Strikes In Kyiv "
ShowToc: true
date: “2022-10-26”
author: “Robert Caddle”
Drowned by the loss of its flagship in the Black Sea and outraged by the alleged Ukrainian aggression on Russian soil, the Russian military administration had warned of new rocket attacks on the Ukrainian capital. Officials in Moscow said they were targeting military bases, a claim repeated – and denied by witnesses – during the 52-day war.
The account goes much deeper. Every day brings new discoveries of civilians victims of an invasion that has shaken European security. As Russia prepared for the impending attack, a mother wept over the body of her 15-year-old son after rockets hit a residential area of Kharkiv, a city in northeastern Ukraine. One baby and at least eight others were killed, officials said.
In towns and villages just outside Kyiv, authorities said they had found the bodies of more than 900 civilians, most of them shot dead, since Russian troops withdrew two weeks ago. Smoke rose again from the capital in the early hours of Saturday, as Mayor Vitali Klitschko reported a strike that killed one person and injured several others.
The mayor advised residents who left the city earlier in the war not to return.
“We do not rule out further strikes in the capital,” Klitschko said. “If you have the opportunity to stay a little longer in cities where it is safer, do it.”
It was not immediately clear from the ground what hit the strike in the Darnytskyi district of Kiev. The large area at the southeastern tip of the capital contains a mix of Soviet-style apartment buildings, newer shopping malls and large retail stores, industrial areas and railway facilities.
Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said the target was an armored factory. He did not specify where the plant was located, but there is one in the Darnytskyi area.
He said the plant was among several Ukrainian military sites hit by “high-precision long-range air weapons”. As the US and Europe send new weapons to Ukraine, the strategy could be aimed at thwarting Ukraine’s defense before what is expected to be a full-scale Russian offensive in the east.
It was the second strike in the Kiev region since the Russian military promised this week to intensify rocket attacks on the capital. Another strike on a rocket factory on Friday.
Russian missiles hit the city as residents went for walks, foreign embassies planned to reopen, and other signs of the city’s pre-war life began to reappear after Russian troops failed to occupy Kyiv and their territory.
Kyiv was one of the many targets on Saturday. The office of the Ukrainian president reported rocket attacks and bombings in the last 24 hours in eight areas across the country.
The governor of the Lviv region in western Ukraine, which has only been sporadically touched by the violence of the war, reported airstrikes in the region by Russian Su-35 aircraft taking off from neighboring Belarus.
In apparent preparations for its offensive in the east, the Russian army has intensified its bombardment of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, in recent days. Friday’s attack killed civilians and injured more than 50, the Ukrainian president’s office said.
On Saturday, a bomb blast believed to have been triggered by rockets sent emergency workers to a nearby market in Kharkov, according to AP reporters at the scene. One person was killed and at least 18 were injured, according to rescue workers.
“All the windows, all the furniture, all damaged. And the door too,” said resident Valentina Ulianova in surprise.
Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said Saturday’s death toll had risen to three and 34 injured.
Nate Mook, a member of the NGO World Central Kitchen run by the famous chef Jose Andres, tweeted that four workers in Kharkov were injured in a strike. Jose Andres wrote on Twitter that the staff members were anxious but safe.
Austrian Chancellor Carl Nehammer, who met with Vladimir Putin last week in Moscow – the first European leader to do so since the invasion began on February 24 – said the Russian president was “in his own war logic” for Ukraine.
In an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press”, Nehammer said he believed Putin believed he was winning the war and “we have to look him in the eye and face him with what we see in Ukraine.”
Nehammer said he confronted Putin with what he saw during a visit to the Kiev suburb of Bucha, where more than 350 bodies were found along with evidence of Russian-occupied killings and torture, and “it was not a friendly conversation.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told Ukrainian journalists in an interview that the ongoing siege of the port of Mariupol, which has cost the trapped and hungry civilians dearly, could thwart negotiations to end the war.
“Destroying all our guys in Mariupol – what they are doing now – can put an end to any form of negotiation,” he said.
Later, in his nightly video address to the nation, Zelensky said Ukraine needed more support from the West to have a chance to save Mariupol.
“Either our partners give Ukraine all the necessary heavy weapons, the planes and without exaggeration immediately, so that we can reduce the pressure of the occupiers in Mariupol and break the blockade,” he said, “or we will do it through negotiations. that the role of our partners must be decisive “.
Zelensky said the situation in Mariupol remained “inhumane” and that Russia was “deliberately trying to destroy everyone there.”
Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said on Saturday that Ukrainian forces had been driven out of most of the city and remained only in the huge Azovstal steel plant.
The occupation of Mariupol will allow Russian forces in the south, which came through the annexed Crimean peninsula, to fully connect with troops in the Donbas region, the eastern industrial heart of Ukraine.
Zelensky estimated that 2,500 to 3,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed in the war and that about 10,000 had been wounded. The Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine announced on Saturday that at least 200 children were killed and more than 360 were injured.
Russian forces have also captured about 700 Ukrainian soldiers and more than 1,000 civilians, Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine Iryna Vereshchuk said on Saturday. Ukraine holds about the same number of Russian troops as prisoners and intends to arrange an exchange, but demands the “unconditional” release of civilians, he said.
Russia has warned of escalating attacks in Kyiv after accusing Ukraine on Thursday of injuring seven people and damaging about 100 residential buildings with airstrikes in Bryansk, an area bordering Ukraine. Ukrainian officials have not confirmed that they hit targets in Russia.
Russian Lt. Gen. Vladimir Frolov, whose troops were among those besieging Mariupol, was buried in St. Petersburg on Saturday after he died in battle, Governor Alexander Beglov said. Ukraine has said several Russian generals and dozens of other high-ranking officers have been killed in the war.
In the Vatican, Pope Francis on Saturday invoked “peace gestures these days marked by the horrors of war” at an Easter vigil in St. Peter’s Basilica, attended by the mayor of the occupied Ukrainian city of Melitopol and three members of the . Francis did not refer directly to the Russian invasion, but called, apparently in vain, for an Easter truce to achieve peace through negotiations.
——
Chernov reported from Kharkov. Yesica Fisch in Kramatorsk, Ukraine, Robert Burns in Washington, D.C., and Associated Press reporters around the world contributed to this report.
—–
Getting in touch
Do you have questions about the attack in Ukraine? Email [email protected]
Include your name, location, and contact information if you would like to speak to a CTV News reporter. Your comments can be used in a CTVNews.ca story.
