Moscow shells Kyiv in revenge for sinking of battleship
Long-range missiles hit capital and other cities in wake of Ukrainian attack on Moskva flagship in Black Sea
RUSSIA bombarded cities across Ukraine yesterday in revenge for the sinking of its Black Sea flagship, the Moskva, amid reports that hundreds of its sailors had perished in the attack.
Strikes with high-precision longrange missiles were launched against Kyiv, and western Ukraine, after weeks of relative calm and despite Russia’s pivot toward a new offensive in the east.
Vitali Klitschko, the mayor of Kyiv, urged residents who had fled the capital not to return, after the city once again came under fire.
He said: “I ask you to refrain from this [coming back] and stay in safer places. Our air defence forces are doing everything they can to protect us, but the enemy is insidious and ruthless.
“Kyiv was and remains a target of the aggressor. We’re not ruling out further strikes on the capital. We can’t prohibit, we can only recommend.
“If you have the opportunity to stay a little bit longer in the cities where it’s safer, do it.”
Hours after confirming Russia’s biggest warship loss since the Second World War, Moscow vowed to intensify long-range strikes in retaliation for what it called “sabotage” and “terrorism”.
At about 5am yesterday the first siren sounded in Kyiv, and by the afternoon three had gone off.
Smoke drifted over the east of the city in the morning following a Russian strike on a military hardware factory in the south-eastern Darnytskyi district.
Igor Konashenkov, the Russian defence ministry spokesman, said the target had been a tank repair plant and was one of several sites hit by “airlaunched high-precision long-range weapons”.
On Friday, Russia targeted a factory that makes the Neptune missiles Ukraine said had been used to sink the Moskva. Russian forces used sea-based long-range missiles to hit the plant.
The strikes have broken a two-week gap in major strikes on Kyiv and came as tentative signs of pre-invasion life had resumed after Russian troops failed to capture the capital.
Anti-tank obstacles known as Czech hedgehogs still line roads, and sandbags and concrete checkpoints remain, but the fighters manning them have mostly moved on.
Billboards no longer broadcast safety instructions and warnings about Russian “infiltrators”, instead displaying patriotic messages. Russia last struck the city centre on March 22.
In addition to revenge for the Moskva, the latest attacks on Kyiv, aimed at military production facilities, could be aimed at undermining Ukraine’s capabilities ahead of an expected full-scale Russian assault in the east.
Since the sinking of the warship, shelling has also increased in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city. Nine civilians died and 50 were injured on Friday, the Ukrainian government said.
A missile landed near an outdoor market in the city yesterday, killing one person and injuring at least 18 people, according to rescue workers. Valentina Ulianova, a resident living nearby, said: “All the windows, all the furniture, all destroyed. And the door, too.”
There were also strikes by Russian aircraft in the Lviv region in western Ukraine, near the Polish border, which had long been seen as safe. The city has been relatively unscathed so far and serves as a haven for refugees and international aid agencies.
Russian Su-35 aircraft used in the strikes against Lviv took off from bases in Belarus. Four incoming cruise missiles were shot down by air defences, the Ukrainian military said.
Meanwhile, fighting continued in the devastated southern port city of Mariupol, which has been blockaded by Russian forces since the early days of the invasion.
While its new focus is the Donbas region, the attacks across the country in recent days show Russia is determined to exact a price for the sinking of the Moskva.
In Moscow officials sought to play down the loss, but some conservative commentators called for revenge.
Viktor Baranets, a military commentator, told Russian television the Odesa region, from where the missiles that hit the ship were launched, should be seized. He said there was “no right to keep Odesa and the Odesa region as part of Ukraine”.
He added: “If the Russophobic regime [in Ukraine] retains control of even a fraction of the Black Sea coast, it will definitely deploy anti-ship missiles that sooner or later will be striking our vessels.”
The Russian ministry of defence said on Thursday that all 510 crew had been rescued from the Moskva and taken to the ship’s home base of Sevastopol in Russian-annexed Crimea.
An article on the state-owned news agency Tass initially claimed the “entire crew” had been rescued. It was later edited to remove the word “entire”.
But two days on, there has been no verifiable confirmation of a single survivor.
Late yesterday, the defence ministry released a video it claimed shows Admiral Nikolai Yevmenov, commander of the Russian navy, meeting the Moskva’s crew in Sevastopol following the attack.
The soundless 26-second clip shows the admiral greeting several dozen men wearing generic uniforms. However, it was not possible to confirm when the video was shot or who was in it.
It took the Russian military almost a day to admit the embarrassing loss of the pride of its Black Sea fleet after it was hit in the early hours of Thursday, initially insisting that it had caught fire after an explosion and was being towed back to land.
But the US has since confirmed that the warship was hit by two Ukrainian missile strikes. The Kremlin later admitted that the Moskva, one of the navy’s three main missile carriers, had sunk, but said it had been due to “choppy waters” and occurred while it was being towed to safety.
If the majority of the crew have died, the incident may end up being the worst single Russian military casualty event since the Second World War.
It could lead to Vladimir Putin facing a backlash in Russia similar to that which he faced when the nuclearpowered submarine Kursk went down in the Barents Sea in 2000, after a torpedo on board exploded in its hatch.
Most of the 118-strong crew were killed instantly, but some 23 sailors stayed in the half-flooded section and waited for a rescue that never came.
It took Mr Putin, still in his first year in office, several days before he ended his seaside vacation and went to the scene, and it later transpired Russia had refused international offers of help.
Mr Putin faced a massive outpouring of grief and anger from the sailors’ widows, and Russia media was scathing of his handling of the disaster.