Russia fires missile barrage
Retaliates after Ukraine sinks a key naval ship
Russia pounded military targets throughout Ukraine on Saturday, in retaliation for the sinking of an important naval ship and in preparation for an offensive in the Donbas region of the country’s east.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said Saturday the strikes destroyed workshops in a tank factory in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, and a military hardware repair facility in Mykolaiv, in southern Ukraine. Also targeted was the Ukrainian military factory on the outskirts of Kyiv, called Vizar, that produced the Neptune anti-ship missile that sank the flagship vessel of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, the Moskva, in a major embarrassment for the Kremlin.
The coming battle in the east will be fought largely on open terrain offering far fewer havens for Ukrainian fighters to hide while launching attacks on Russian armored vehicles, as they did so successfully in repelling the Russian forces from around Kyiv. The Russian missile attacks Friday into Saturday seemed calibrated to weaken Ukraine’s ability to withstand armored assaults in that setting.
The strikes served as a reminder that wherever the fighting is concentrated on the ground, Russia still can and will strike anywhere in Ukraine, and they underscored the importance of Ukraine’s industrial capacity, including its ability to make and repair weapons.
Why Russia waited until two months into the war to target these facilities is unclear. While the strikes could have been a response to the sinking of the Moskva, Russia’s Defense Ministry has not acknowledged that Ukrainian missiles hit the ship, which it said was mortally wounded by a fire and ammunition explosion.
Some analysts have pointed to the recent appointment of a top Russian battlefield commander in Ukraine, Gen. Alexander Dvornikov, as a factor in Moscow’s strategy. He is expected to address the lack of coordination and planning that has hampered Russian forces so far, reorganizing and redirecting them for the fighting in Donbas.
Rocket and missile attacks also rained down Saturday on an airport in central Ukraine, the Black Sea port of Odesa, the northeastern city of Kharkiv and the western city of Lviv. Explosions from at least one strike shook Kyiv, and Ukraine’s air defense force said it had shot down a volley of four cruise missiles in flight elsewhere in the country.
Moscow retaliated diplomatically against the West Saturday, barring Prime Minister Boris Johnson and other senior British officials from entering the country over their support for Ukraine, the Russian Foreign Ministry said. Johnson has been a leading voice in Europe against Moscow and traveled to Kyiv a week ago to meet with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Britain has supplied Ukraine with new antiship missile systems, armored vehicles and other military equipment. Ukrainian fighters have used anti-tank weapons supplied by Britain to devastating effect against Russia’s armored vehicles.
In Germany, the economy minister called on people to cut back their energy consumption, including by drawing curtains and lowering the temperature in their homes, as part of what he described as a national effort to reduce dependence on Russian fossil fuels in response to its invasion of Ukraine. Germany has joined other Western nations in imposing embargoes on Russian coal and possibly oil, but it is reluctant to do the same with Russian gas, which accounts for more than half its gas imports.
“We can only become more independent of Russian imports if we see it as a large joint project in which we all participate,” the minister, Robert Habeck, told the Funke media group Friday. He added, in reference to President Vladimir Putin of Russia, “It’s easy on the wallet and annoys Putin.”
Ukrainian forces repelled the Russian attempt to seize Kyiv, and Moscow has withdrawn tens of thousands of troops from that region. Residents have been streaming back into the city since then, but the window-rattling blasts Saturday became a stark reminder that the war is far from over, even far from the front.
Russia’s cruise missiles, the principal weapon in Saturday’s attacks, can strike over long distances at sites throughout the country. Through the day Saturday, air raid sirens wailed in Kyiv; and overnight, the distant, dull thuds of air defense missiles exploding could be heard in the sky over the city.
“Our air defenses are working, our military is defending us, but all the same there were explo
sions” in a southeastern district of the capital, Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said on Telegram. The strike killed one person and wounded several others, he said.
Klitschko said Kyiv remains a target for Russia despite the defeat of the ground assault force, which retreated hastily, leaving in its wake burned tanks, its own war dead and hundreds of civilian bodies lying on streets. Police said Friday they have so far found 900 bodies of civilians in the Kyiv region, the administrative district surrounding the capital.
Zelenskyy said in a late-night address Saturday that Russian forces had been expelled from nearly 1,000 villages, towns and cities across Ukraine.
Most of the liberated communities lie in the northern parts of the country and suffered extensive damage to buildings and infrastructure during the monthlong Russian occupation.
Zelenskyy also acknowledged the Ukrainian army had lost as many as 3,000 troops, while insisting that Russian fatalities were far higher.
Elsewhere in Ukraine, the air defense force said it shot down four cruise missiles flying toward Lviv and that a missile exploded in the air near Odesa. Also near Odesa, Ukraine shot down a Russian unmanned aerial drone as it was reconnoitering military sites, local authorities said.
Near Kirovograd in central Ukraine, Russian long-range rockets struck an airport Thursday night, according to a local mayor, who said there were dead and wounded after the attack but did not specify how many.
The cruise missile strikes in Kyiv have continued nearly daily through the war but have often hit targets in outlying areas without causing much disruption to life in the city, which has been reviving. So far, missiles have not struck key government buildings, including the presidential office and Parliament; whether they were targeted but successfully shielded by Ukraine’s air defenses is not clear.
“The war goes on in Kyiv, and we cannot relax,” said Galina Ostapenko, 72, a retired postal worker, who was walking in the yard of her apartment building a block or so from the site of the strike Saturday.
“What happened pains my heart,” she said of the explosion in her neighborhood. “I will teach my grandchildren to hate the Russians.”
As Russia steps up its attacks on Ukrainian military targets, Washington has been speeding up efforts to supply Ukraine with advanced weapons in recent days.
Russia warned Washington of “unpredictable consequences” for its support.