Villages ‘wiped from face of the earth’ as Russian missiles rain down on Ukraine
• Zelensky tells members of the defence alliance his country needs $5bn a month for its protection and warns that Putin is coming for Lithuania
Russian forces struck at targets in the Mykolaiv area of southern Ukraine on Wednesday and intensified attacks on fronts across the country as Nato members met in Madrid to plan a course of action.
The mayor of Mykolaiv city said a Russian missile strike killed at least three people in a residential building, while Moscow said its forces had hit what it called a training base for foreign mercenaries.
In the east, the governor of Luhansk province said there was “fighting everywhere” in the battle around the hilltop city of Lysychansk, which Russian troops are trying to encircle.
The governor of Kryvyi Rih in central Ukraine, Oleksander Vilkul, said Russian shelling had increased there too in the past few days. “Several villages have been wiped from the face of the earth,” he said.
The attacks took place as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces make slow but inexorable progress in a conflict now in its fifth month. They follow an attack on a shopping mall that killed at least 18 people and injured 60 on Monday.
Western analysts say the Russians are taking heavy casualties. The prospect of more Western weapon supplies reaching Ukraine, including long-range missile systems, made Moscow’s need to consolidate any gains more urgent.
Leaders of Nato countries were meeting in the Spanish capital, Madrid, to thrash out policy in response to Russian actions, as well as to any Chinese threats.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said members of the military alliance would supply Ukraine with weapons for as long as necessary, while US President Joe Biden told the summit the US was strengthening its forces in Europe based on threats from Russia.
President Volodymyr Zelensky, in a video link-up to the meeting, demanded more weapons from the West and said Ukraine needs $5bn a month for its defence and protection.
Russia will set its sights on other countries, he warned, saying Moscow wants to “enslave” Nato member Lithuania.
Ukraine praised Nato for having a “clear-eyed stance” on Russia and for inviting Finland and Sweden to join the military alliance. Kyiv called for an “equally strong and active position on Ukraine”.
Russia has long complained about a perceived expansion of Western blocs towards its borders, but its invasion of Ukraine has given new impetus to Nato. The EU has awarded Ukraine candidate status in light of the invasion.
The mayor of Mykolaiv, Oleksandr Senkevych, said eight
Russian missiles struck the city, including an apartment block. Photographs showed smoke billowing from a four-storey building with its upper floor partly destroyed.
Russia’s defence ministry said its forces carried out strikes on a military training base for “foreign mercenaries” near the city and hit eight ammunition depots and a fuel dump.
Reuters wasn’t able to independently verify the reports.
A river port and ship-building centre just off the Black Sea, Mykolaiv has been a bastion against Russian efforts to push west towards Ukraine’s main port city of Odesa.
The Mykolaiv strikes took place two days after a Russian missile hit a mall in Kremenchuk, where rescuers were still searching for dozens of missing people on Wednesday.
The Kremenchuk attack drew international condemnation. Moscow denied targeting the mall and said it struck an arms depot nearby.
Zelensky’s office said Russia had also fired missiles at civilian infrastructure in Sumy region in the past 24 hours, killing two civilians.
Britain’s ministry of defence expects Russia to continue making strikes in an effort to hamper the resupply of Ukrainian forces on the front lines. “Russia’s shortage of more modern, precision-strike weapons and the professional shortcomings of their targeting planners will highly likely result in further civilian casualties,” it said.
Ukrainian armed forces commander Gen Valery Zaluzhny said Russia had fired about 130 missiles on Ukraine in the past four days — an indication of the intensification of attacks.
Russia has denied targeting civilian areas, but the UN says at least 4,700 civilians have been killed since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24.
Zelensky addressed the UN Security Council remotely on Tuesday, describing Russia as a “terrorist state”. He urged the council, where Moscow has a veto, to expel it.
Fighting also raged further east in Luhansk province, a key battleground in Russia’s assault on the industrial heartland of the Donbas region.
“There is fighting everywhere. The enemy is trying to break through our defences. And since they don’t succeed, they fire with all the weapons they have, erase all the villages from the face of the earth,” Luhansk governor Serhiy Gaidai said on television.
The battle for Lysychansk in Luhansk comes after the fall of Sievierodonetsk, its sister city across the Siverskyi Donets River on Saturday. Its capture would expand Russian control of the Donbas, one of Moscow’s objectives since its failure to seize Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, in the early stages of the war.
The Moscow-imposed military-civilian administration in Kherson region said it had begun preparations for a referendum on joining Russia, Russian state news agency Tass reported.
Kherson, a port city on the Black Sea, is just northwest of the Russian-annexed Crimean peninsula.
Russia-installed officials said their security forces detained Kherson city mayor Ihor Kolykhayev on Tuesday after he refused to follow Moscow’s orders. A local official said the mayor was abducted.
THE ENEMY IS TRYING TO BREAK THROUGH OUR DEFENCES. SINCE THEY DON’T SUCCEED, THEY FIRE WITH ALL THE WEAPONS THEY HAVE
Serhiy Gaidai Luhansk governor