Russia reports NATO weapons destroyed
State Dept. monitors reports of at least 2 Americans captured
KYIV, Ukraine — The Russian military said it used long-range missiles Wednesday to destroy a depot in the western Lviv region of Ukraine where ammunition for Nato-supplied weapons was stored, and the governor of a key eastern city acknowledged that Russian forces are advancing in heavy fighting.
The battle for Sievierodonetsk in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas area has become the focus of Russia’s offensive in recent weeks.
Russia-backed separatists accused Ukrainian forces of sabotaging an evacuation of civilians from the city’s besieged Azot chemical plant, where about 500 civilians and an unknown number of Ukrainian fighters are believed to be sheltering from missile attacks. It wasn’t possible to verify that claim.
Russian officials had announced a humanitarian corridor from the Azot plant a day earlier, but said they would take civilians to areas controlled by Russian, not Ukrainian, forces.
The Ukrainian governor of Luhansk, Serhiy Haidai, said “heavy fighting in Sievierodonetsk continues today as well.”
The situation in the city is getting worse, Haidai said, because Russian forces have more manpower and weapons. “But our military is holding back the enemy from three sides at once,” he added.
In the Lviv region near the border with NATO member Poland, Russian forces used high-precision Kalibr missiles to destroy the depot near the town of Zolochiv, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said. Konashenkov said shells for M777 howitzers, a type supplied by the United States, were stored there.
He said four howitzers were destroyed elsewhere and that Russian airstrikes also destroyed Ukrainian “aviation equipment” at a military aerodrome in the southern Mykolaiv region.
Ukrainian officials did not immediately comment on the Zolochiv strike.
President Joe Biden said Wednesday that the U.S. will send an additional $1 billion in military aid, the largest single tranche of weapons and equipment since the war began. Germany is providing Ukraine with three multiple launch rocket systems that Kyiv has said it urgently needs to defend itself. Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht said Wednesday that Germany will transfer three M270 medium-range artillery rocket systems along with ammunition.
While focusing most of their attacks on eastern Ukraine, where they are trying to capture large swaths of territory, Russian forces have also been hitting more specific targets elsewhere, using high-precision missiles to disrupt the international supply of weapons and destroy military infrastructure. Civilian infrastructure has been bombarded as well, even though Russian officials have claimed they’re only targeting military facilities.
Meanwhile, Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chair of Russia’s Security Council, ominously suggested that Russia appears intent on not just claiming territory but eliminating Ukraine as a nation. In a Telegram post, he wrote that he saw Ukraine wants to receive liquefied natural gas from its “overseas masters” with payment due in two years.
He added: “But there’s a question. Who said that in two years, Ukraine will even exist on the map?”
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Zelenskyy, responded on Twitter: “Ukraine has been and will be. Where will Medvedev be in two years?”
In other developments Wednesday:
The U.S. State Department said it is looking into reports that Russian or Russianbacked separatist forces in Ukraine have captured at least two American citizens.
“We are closely monitoring the situation and are in contact with Ukrainian authorities,” the department said in a statement Wednesday. It declined further comment.
If confirmed, they would be the first Americans fighting for Ukraine known to have been captured since Russia invaded on Feb. 24. A court in Donetsk, under separatist control, last week sentenced two Britons and a Moroccan man to death for fighting for Ukraine.
Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-ill., tweeted that the Americans “have enlisted in the Ukrainian army, and thus are afforded legal combatant protections” given prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention.
It was unclear whether Kinzinger had any further information about the men.
Neither Ukrainian nor Russian authorities commented about the reports of the captured Americans.
A U.N. delegation investigating war crimes in Ukraine has visited areas of the country that were held by Russian troops and found evidence that could support war crimes allegations.
The delegation chaired by Erik Mose, a Norwegian judge, visited sites including the Kyiv suburbs of Bucha and Irpin, where Ukrainian authorities have accused Russia of mass killings of civilians.
“At this stage we are not in a position to make any factual findings or pronounce ourselves on issues of the legal determination of events,” Mose said.