Putin turns missiles on sleeping families
Russia takes revenge after Snake Island humiliation
MOSCOW sent missiles to kill sleeping civilians yesterday in an apparent warning to Ukraine that nowhere is safe.
Less than 24 hours after Russian troops were forced to abandon the strategically important Snake Island in the Black Sea, rockets slammed into an apartment block near the port city of Odesa.
At least 21 people, including two children, were killed in the 1am strike on the village of Serhiyivka, with hope fading last night of finding survivors amid the rubble.
The three Kh22 Sovietera missiles that hit the block and a nearby holi‘ day resort were fired from Russian bombers over the Black Sea in a show of power by Moscow.
At least 60 firefighters desperately beat back the inferno enveloping the apartment building, where 150 people were thought to be trapped.
A pregnant woman was pulled from the smouldering rubble – one of the 38, including children, left injured. Cars were also seen buried in piles of concrete.
There were fears last night that the death toll would rise as more bodies are recovered. Officials said at least three people, including two children, were still unaccounted for.
Survivor Kateryna Orekhova, who was saved by emergency
workers with her two children, said: ‘The window frames and glass were knocked out at first. Bits of the walls flew everywhere, the furniture and cabinets fell, and the refrigerator fell on me.’ The family escaped with cuts and bruises. Videos also showed desperate residents pleading for help, shouting: ‘Damn, please, oh god! We need anybody. I called an ambulance but we need anybody here.’
A baby was also heard crying as the search for survivors continued.
Retired teacher Vera Dmitrievna, 70, was one of the victims. Her son Dmitry Maksymenko, 40, said she tried to shelter after she heard the first explosion at the nearby resort.
‘She ran to the corridor to try and find safety but she didn’t stand a chance,’ he added last night after identifying his mother at the morgue.
The attack came days after 20 people died when a Russian rocket hit a shopping centre in central Ukraine.
According to Ukrainian officials, the same decadesold ordnance used to target Serhiyivka struck the Amstor mall in Kremenchuk on Wednesday.
The Kh22 rockets, which entered service in the 1960s, are prone to straying off course and, once fired, their trajectory cannot be corrected with any certainty by their batterypowered he guidance systems.
Ivan Bakanov, head of Ukraine’s security service, the SBU, said: ‘The occupiers cannot win on the battlefield so they resort to vile killing of civilians.
‘After the enemy was dislodged from Snake Island, he decided to respond with the cynical shelling of civilian targets.’
After the air strikes on Kremenchuk, Vladimir Putin denied attacking Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure, saying: ‘Nobody among us shoots just like that, randomly. It is normally done based on intelligence data.’
The latest attack came as the authorities in Kyiv announced that schools in the capital will reopen at the start of the academic year on September 1.
Schools in the city, currently on summer holiday, had all gone online after Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24.
Bomb shelters in schools will be restocked with water, medicine and other necessities before pupils go back to classes.
Hundreds of thousands of Kyiv residents have returned in recent weeks and businesses including restaurants and supermarkets are gradually reopening.
She didn’t stand a chance’
The alleged misbehaviour itself is contemptible enough, but we also now know he was a serial offender. Before he was promoted to the whips’ office, there had been serious complaints of impropriety against him. Yet somehow he managed to get through both Downing Street and Cabinet Office vetting. How is that possible? Is anyone in control?
Number 10 tried to dampen criticism by suggesting Boris Johnson was unaware of Mr Pincher’s creepy proclivities when he promoted him.
But given that every dog in the street seems to have known – at Westminster and beyond – that claim stretched credibility to the limit. And if he didn’t know, why not?
Mr Pincher has now quit and had the whip withdrawn, but that will not be the end of it. This whole sorry affair needs to be exposed to the disinfectant of sunlight before it gets any more toxic.
We are already starting to experience the familiar fin de siècle feel of John Major’s last years in power. Critical mass has not yet been reached. But it’s dangerously close.
Mr Johnson has one ace in the hole, however. Major’s opponent in 1997 was Tony Blair, a formidable campaigner with a seductive Centrist agenda. Boris is lucky enough to have the wooden Sir Keir Starmer and a Shadow Cabinet of little discernible talent.
Voters also know that opting for Sir Keir in an election would usher in a ramshackle alliance of Labour, Lib Dems, Scots Nats, Greens and anyone else they could scrape together to form an overall majority.
The result could be the break-up of the UK and proportional representation, condemning this country to the political quagmire of permanent coalition.
To avert that catastrophe between now and 2024, the Tories must offer a credible alternative. For that to happen the parliamentary party needs to grow up, park its internal differences and start behaving like a government rather than a circus act.
If it can rediscover its discipline and sense of purpose over the next two years, all is not lost. Right now, the omens aren’t good.