Russia steps up attacks in Ukraine
Biden plans to visit Poland this month to rally coalition
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 first anniversary of its invasion.
Russian forces have launched 71 cruise missiles, 35 S-300 missiles and seven Shahed drones since late Thursday, said Ukraine’s military chief, Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi.
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.”
In Washington, the White House announced that President Joe Biden will travel to Poland this month to rally allies as he aims to sustain a coalition that has supported Kyiv’s defenses.
The visit, scheduled for Feb. 20-22, comes as polling in the United States and abroad suggests waning support for maintaining tens of billions of dollars worth of military and economic assistance for Ukraine in the protracted war.
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. Moscow-backed separatists
have been fighting Ukrainian forces there since 2014.
The Kremlin is attempting 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 last Feb. 24, military analysts say. At that time, the capital, Kyiv, and the installation of a puppet government were among its targets,
but numerous battlefield setbacks, including yielding areas of the Donbas 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 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.
There has been little change in battlefield positions for weeks amid freezing
winter conditions.
Denis Pushilin, the Moscow-appointed head of the Donetsk region, said that Russian forces had secured positions on the southern outskirts of Vuhledar. He added that Ukraine has sent additional reinforcements to the city that slowed the Russian advance.
Pushilin’s claim couldn’t be independently verified.
Vuhledar is a strategically important town that sits next to a railway link crossing the region on the way to Crimea. Capturing the town is important for
Russia to secure the safety of the railway connection to Crimea and advance its goal of seizing the entire Donetsk region.
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 International Atomic Energy Agency said two of Ukraine’s three operating nuclear power plants reduced power “due to renewed shelling of the country’s energy infrastructure.”
The barrage was broad, also taking aim at the capital, Kyiv, and 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.
Also Friday, Moldova’s Ministry of Defense said that a missile was detected traversing its airspace near the border with Ukraine. Moldova’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the Russian ambassador in Chisinau has been summoned for talks over the “unacceptable violation.”
The ministry said that the missile was detected in its airspace at around 10 a.m. and flew over two border villages before heading toward Ukraine.