South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
Russian troops dead after rampage
At least 11 killed, 15 wounded in attack by fellow volunteers
ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine — At least 11 Russian soldiers were killed Saturday in a shooting incident that underlined the challenges posed by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s hasty mobilization, just as Ukrainian troops pressed an offensive to reclaim the areas in the country’s south that were illegally annexed by Moscow.
The Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement that the shooting took place in the Belgorod region in southwestern Russia that borders Ukraine. The ministry said two men opened fire during a target practice session, killing 11 volunteer soldiers and wounding 15 others before being killed themselves. The ministry also called it a terror attack.
Russia has lost ground in the nearly seven weeks since Ukraine’s armed forces opened their southern counteroffensive. This past week, the Kremlin launched what is believed to be its largest coordinated air and missile raids on Ukraine’s key infrastructure since the war started.
A missile strike Saturday seriously damaged a key energy facility in Ukraine’s capital region, the country’s grid operator said. Following mounting setbacks, the Russian military has worked to cut off power and water in far-flung populated areas while also fending off Ukrainian counterattacks in occupied areas.
In the Zaporizhzhia region, Gov. Oleksandr Starukh said the Russian military carried out strikes with suicide drones from Iran and long-range S-300 missiles. Some experts said the
Russian military’s use of the surface-to-air missiles may reflect shortages of dedicated precision weapons for hitting ground targets.
Dmytro Pocishchuk, a hospital medic in the Zaporizhzhia region’s capital who has treated dozens of people wounded in Russian attacks in recent weeks, said people sought safety outdoors or in his building’s basement when the blasts started at 5:15 a.m. Saturday.
“If Ukraine stops, these bombings and killings will continue. We can’t give up to the Russian Federation,’” Pocishchuk said, placing a small Ukrainian flag on the broken windshield of his heavily damaged car.
In the southern Kherson region, one of the first areas
of Ukraine to fall to Russia after the invasion started Feb. 24 and which Putin also illegally designated as Russian territory last month, Ukrainian forces pressed their counteroffensive Saturday.
Kyiv’s army has reported recapturing 75 villages and towns there in the last month, but said the momentum had slowed, with the fighting settling into the grueling back-and-forth that characterized Russia’s monthslong offensive to conquer Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region.
On Saturday, Ukrainian troops attempted to advance south along the banks of the Dnieper River toward the Kherson regional capital, also called Kherson, but
didn’t gain ground, according to Kirill Stremousov, a deputy head of the occupied region’s Moscow-installed administration.
“The defense lines worked, and the situation has remained under the full control of the Russian army,” he wrote on his messaging app channel.
The Kremlin-backed local leaders asked civilians Thursday to leave the region to ensure their safety and to give Russian troops more maneuverability. Stremousov reminded them they could evacuate to Crimea and cities in southwestern Russia, where Moscow offered free accommodations to residents who agreed to leave.
Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, the Russian Defense
Ministry’s spokesman, said the military destroyed five crossings on the Inhulets River, another route Ukraine’s fighters could take to progress toward the Kherson region.
Konashenkov claimed Russian troops also blocked Ukrainian attempts to make inroads in breaching Russian defenses near Lyman, a city in the annexed Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine that the Ukrainians retook two weeks ago.
Meanwhile, the lead conductor of Kherson’s top theater was killed in his home by Russian forces, according to the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture, in what appeared to be the latest instance of targeting dissenters.
Yurii Kerpatenko, who led orchestras at the Mykola Kulish Kherson Regional Academic Music and Drama Theater, was fatally shot after he refused to take part in an online day of music organized by Russian-backed local officials, the ministry said in a statement posted Saturday on Facebook.
The statement did not say when Kerpatenko had been killed, only that the news was known Friday.
Yaroslav Yanushevich, the head of the Kherson regional military administration, said Russian troops had shot the conductor “because of the man’s refusal to cooperate with the enemy.”