Russia strikes sites across Ukraine
KYIV, Ukraine – Russia used strategic bombers, cruise missiles and killer drones in a wave of attacks across Ukraine early Friday, while Moscow’s military push that Kyiv says has been brewing for days appeared to pick up pace in eastern areas ahead of the one-year anniversary of its invasion.
Russian forces have launched 71 cruise missiles, 35 S-300 missiles and seven Shahed drones since late Thursday, Ukraine military chief Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi said.
Ukrainian forces downed 61 cruise missiles and five drones, he added.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has campaigned for more Western support against Russia’s military ambitions, said: “This is terror that can and must be stopped.”
Meanwhile, the Kremlin’s ground forces were focusing on Ukraine’s industrial east, especially the Luhansk and Donetsk provinces that make up the industrial Donbas region where recent fighting has been most intense, the Ukrainian military said. Moscowbacked
separatists have been fighting Ukrainian forces there since 2014.
The Kremlin is striving to secure areas it illegally annexed last September – the Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia regions – and where it claims its rule is welcomed, according to Kyiv officials.
Moscow’s goals have narrowed since it launched its full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, military analysts say. At that time, the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, and the installation of a puppet government were among its targets, but numerous battlefield setbacks, including yielding Donbas areas it had initially captured, have embarrassed Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The Kremlin is currently concentrating its efforts on gaining full control of the Donbas, Kyiv claims, and is pushing at key points on several fronts, though Russian progress is reportedly slow.
In the Donetsk region, local Ukrainian officials reported that the Russian military deployed additional troops and launched offensive operations.
“There is a daily escalation, and Russian attacks are becoming active throughout the region,” Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko
President Gwynne Shotwell of SpaceX, which runs Starlink, was also reported to have said Wednesday that the company has taken unspecified action to prevent Ukraine’s military from using Starlink technology against Russian invaders.
Shotwell’s comments drew the ire of a top aide to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. In a tweet, Mykhailo Podolyak said SpaceX needs to decide whether it is on the side of Ukraine’s right to freedom or Russia’s “‘right’ to kill & seize territories.”
– AP
said.
In Luhansk province,the Russian army is trying to punch through Ukrainian defenses, according to regional Gov. Serhii Haidai.
“The situation is deteriorating; the enemy is constantly attacking; the Russians are bringing in a large amount of heavy equipment and aircraft,” Haidai said.
The cruise missiles aimed at Ukraine were launched by Russian Tu-95 strategic bombers and from Russian navy ships in the Black Sea, military chief Zaluzhnyi said, while the S-300 missiles were launched from the Belgorod region just inside Russia and the occupied part of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region.
Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said Moscow once again targeted the power supply in “another attempt to destroy the Ukrainian energy system and deprive Ukrainians of light, heat, water.”
The barrage was broad, also taking aim at Kyiv and at Lviv, near Ukraine’s western border with Poland. It also struck critical infrastructure in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, in the northeast. Seven people were wounded there, two of them seriously, regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said.
Air raid sirens sounded across much of the country.