Russian missiles on Sunday hit industrial facilities in a strategic city in southern Ukraine as Moscow continued to strive to expand its gains in the east of the country.
Mykolaiv Mayor Oleksandr Senkevych said Russian missiles hit an industrial and infrastructure facility in the city, a key shipbuilding center on the Southern Bug River estuary. There was no immediate information about the victims.
Mykolaiv has faced regular Russian missile attacks in recent weeks as the Russians have tried to soften Ukraine’s defenses.
The Russian army has declared the goal of cutting off the entire Black Sea coast of Ukraine to the Romanian border. If successful, this effort would be an overwhelming blow to the Ukrainian economy and trade and would allow Moscow to secure a land bridge with Moldova’s Transnistrian separatist region, which hosts a Russian military base.
Earlier in the campaign, Ukrainian forces defended Russian attempts to capture Mykolaiv, located near the Black Sea coast between the Russian-occupied Crimea and the main Ukrainian port of Odessa.
Since then, Russian troops have stopped their attempts to advance on the city, but have continued to strike it with regular missile attacks.
They also tried to strengthen their positions in the Kherson region near Crimea and part of the northern Zaporizhzhia region that seized in the early stages of the conflict, for fear of a Ukrainian counteroffensive.
The British Defense Ministry said on Sunday that Russia is moving labor and equipment between Kherson, Mariupol and Zaporizhzhia. He said the Russians are also stepping up their security measures around Melitopol.
He added: “Given the pressures on Russian labor, the strengthening of the south as the struggle for the Donbass continues indicates the seriousness with which Russian commanders see the threat.”
For the time being, the Russian army has focused its efforts on trying to take control of the eastern industrial heart of Ukraine, the Donbass, where the most capable and well-equipped Ukrainian forces are located.
Ukraine says its forces still maintain control of two small villages in the Luhansk region, one of the two provinces that make up the Donbas, and that they are facing Russian attempts to advance further into the second, the region of Luhansk. Donetsk.
The Ukrainian army staff said on Sunday that Ukrainian troops thwarted Russian attempts to advance on Sloviansk, Ukraine’s key bastion in Donetsk, and other attacks on other parts of the region.
During a visit to the front line on Saturday, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu ordered “further intensification of the units’ actions in all operational areas.”
While focusing on Donbas, the Russians hit areas across the country with missile attacks.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged Ukrainians not to fall into Russia’s attempts to scare them away with warnings of horrific missile attacks, which he said were aimed at dividing Ukrainian society.
“It is clear that no Russian missile or artillery will be able to break our unity or get out of our way” towards a democratic and independent Ukraine, “he said in his nightly video to the nation.” And it is also clear that unity of Ukraine cannot be broken by lies or intimidation, falsifications or conspiracy theories. “
On Thursday, a Russian missile attack killed at least 24 people, including three children, and injured more than 200 in Vinnytsia, a city southwest of Kyiv, the capital, far from the front lines that had been rescued. largely from the Russian bombing before. Three of those missing after the attack were found alive among the rubble on Saturday and one person remained missing, the emergency service said on Saturday.
On Sunday, family and friends attended a mourning ceremony for Liza, a 4-year-old girl killed in a strike. The girl with Down syndrome was on her way to see a speech therapist with her mother in central Ukraine when the missile landed. His mother, Iryna Dmytrieva, was among the injured.
“She remembered that she was looking for her daughter and Liza was already dead,” Iryna’s aunt, Tetiana Dmytrysyna, told The Associated Press. “The mother was robbed of the most precious thing she had.”
In the Kharkiv region, at least three civilians were killed and three others were injured Saturday in a pre-dawn Russian attack on the city of Chuhuiv, which is only 120 kilometers (75 miles) from the Russian border. say the police.
Lyudmila Krekshina, who lives in the apartment building that was hit, said they killed a husband and wife, as well as an elderly man who lived downstairs.
Another resident said he was lucky to have survived.
“I was going to run and hide in the bathroom. I didn’t get it and that’s what saved me,” Valentina Bushuyeva said. Pointing to his destroyed apartment, he said, “There’s the bathroom: an explosion. Kitchen: half a room. And I survived because I stayed here.”