Russia resumes barrage of strikes on Ukraine
RUSSIAN air strikes inflicted more damage on Ukraine yesterday, with the latest barrage smashing into energy infrastructure, apartment buildings and an industrial site.
At least four people were killed and more than a dozen wounded in drone and missile strikes around the country, authorities said.
With the Kremlin’s forces on the ground being pushed back, Russia has increasingly resorted in recent weeks to aerial onslaughts aimed at energy infrastructure in parts of Ukraine it does not hold.
In Kyiv, the capital city’s military administration said air defences shot down at least two cruise missiles and five exploding drones.
Ukrainian air defences this week appear to have had far higher rates of successful shoot-downs than during previous barrages, analysts say, partly due to Western-supplied weapons systems.
The Russian strikes hit the city of Dnipro and Ukraine’s Odesa province for the first time in weeks. Valentyn Reznichenko, governor of Dnipropetrovsk province, said a large fire erupted in Dnipro after the strikes hit an industrial target.
The attack wounded at least 14 people, including a teenage girl, and all were being treated in city hospitals, Mr Reznichenko added.
President Volodymyr Zelensky posted a video on social media that he said was one of the blasts in Dnipro. The video from a vehicle dashcam shows a fiery blast engulfing a rainy road.
“This is another confirmation from Dnipro of how terrorists want peace,” he wrote. “The peaceful city and people’s wish to live their accustomed lives. Going to work, to their affairs. A rocket attack!”
Elsewhere, a Russian strike that hit a residential building killed at least four people overnight in Vilnia, in Zaporizhzhia province. Critical infrastructure was also hit in Kharkiv province, in the city of Izyum, wounding three workers, the provincial administration said.
An infrastructure target was hit in Odesa province, governor Maksym Marchenko said on social media, warning of the threat of a “massive missile barrage on the entire territory of Ukraine”.
■ The United States and its Western allies clashed with Russia at the United Nations Security Council over responsibility for this week’s deadly missile strike in Poland near the Ukrainian border.
Rosemary DiCarlo, the UN’s Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, called the incident “a frightening reminder of the absolute need to prevent any further escalation” of the ninemonth war in Ukraine.
US ambassador Linda ThomasGreenfield told the council: “This tragedy would never have happened but for Russia’s needless invasion of Ukraine and its recent missile assaults against Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure.”
Russia’s UN ambassador Vassily Nebenzia countered, accusing Ukraine and Poland of trying “to provoke a direct clash between Russia and Nato”.
Mr Nebenzia pointed to statements by Ukraine’s president and Polish officials initially indicating Russia was responsible, a theory which has since been downplayed by Nato and Poland’s president.