Kyiv, Ukraine (AP) – Russia aimed at Western military supplies to the Ukrainian government with Sunday airstrikes in Kyiv that said they destroyed tanks donated from abroad, a claim denied by a Ukrainian official. Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that any Western delivery of long-range rocket systems to Ukraine would lead to Moscow hitting “objects we have not yet hit.”
The Russian leader’s cryptic threat of a military escalation did not specify what the new targets might be, but it comes days after the United States announced plans to deliver $ 700 million in security assistance to Ukraine. These weapons include four precision-guided medium-range rocket systems, helicopters, Javelin anti-tank weapon systems, radars, tactical vehicles and more.
Military analysts say Russia hopes to invade the industrial region of Donbas in eastern Ukraine, where Russia-backed separatists have been fighting the Ukrainian government since 2014, before US weapons could arrive. change course. The Pentagon said last week that it would take at least three weeks to bring U.S. precision weapons to the battlefield.
The Ukrainian General Staff said that Russian forces fired five X-22 cruise missiles from the Caspian Sea towards Kyiv, and one was destroyed by air defenses. Four more missiles hit “infrastructure facilities”, but Ukraine said there were no casualties. The operator of the Energoatom nuclear power plant said a cruise missile sounded near the Pivdennoukrainsk nuclear power plant, 350 kilometers (220 miles) south, and warned of catastrophic dangers if such a close accident turned into a direct impact.
In a post on the Telegram app, the Russian Ministry of Defense said high-precision, long-range missiles were used. He said attacks on the outskirts of Kyiv destroyed T-72 tanks supplied by Eastern European countries and other armored vehicles located in buildings of a train car repair business.
But the head of the Ukrainian railway system rejected the claim that there were tanks inside. Oleksandr Kamyshin said four missiles hit the Darnytsia car repair plant, but no military equipment was stored. He said the site was used to repair gondolas and grain conveyors to export products.
“Russia has lied again,” he wrote in the Telegram. “His real goal (of Russia) is the economy and the civilian population. They want to block our ability to export Ukrainian products. “
In a televised interview on Sunday, Putin criticized Western arms deliveries to Ukraine, saying they intend to prolong the conflict.
“All this fuss over additional arms deliveries, in my view, has only one goal: to prolong the armed conflict as much as possible,” Putin said. He insisted that such supplies were unlikely to change the military situation of the Ukrainian government much, which he said only offset the losses of similar rockets they already had.
If Kyiv achieves more powerful rockets, he added, Moscow “will draw the right conclusions and use our means of destruction, many of which we have, to hit those objects that we have not yet hit.”
The US has stopped before offering Ukraine long-range weapons that could shoot deep into Russia. The four mid-range artillery rocket systems included in the security package include wheeled launchers that allow troops to hit a target and then move away quickly, which could be useful against Russian artillery. battlefield.
The Spanish newspaper El País reported on Sunday that Spain planned to supply anti-aircraft missiles and up to 40 Leopard 2 A4 fighter tanks to Ukraine. The Spanish Ministry of Defense did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A pillar of smoke filled the air with a pungent odor in the eastern Darnystki district of Kyiv over the charred, blackened remains of a warehouse-like structure. Soldiers blocked a nearby road leading to a large railroad yard.
Prior to the attack on Sunday morning, Kyiv had not faced any Russian airstrikes since the April 28 visit of UN Secretary-General António Guterres. The attack triggered airstrikes and showed that Russia still had the capacity and the will to strike at the heart of Ukraine, despite abandoning its broader offensive across Ukraine to focus its efforts on capture territory to the east.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24 has killed tens of thousands of civilians and countless troops, evicted millions from their homes, imposed heavy sanctions on Putin’s government and allies, and strangled them. exports of wheat and other major critics of Ukraine across the Black Sea. ports: limit access to bread in Africa, the Middle East and beyond.
Energoatom said a Russian cruise missile was dangerously close to the Pivdennoukrainsk nuclear power plant. He said the missile “flew very low” and that Russian forces “still do not understand that even the smallest fragment of a missile that can hit a unit of power in operation can cause a nuclear catastrophe and a leak. radiation “.
In recent days, Russian forces have focused on capturing the eastern Ukrainian cities of Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk. On Sunday, they continued their push, with missiles and airstrikes on towns and villages in the Luhansk region of Donbas.
The UK military said in its daily intelligence update that Ukraine’s counterattacks in Sieverodonetsk were “probably diminishing the operational momentum that Russian forces had previously gained by concentrating combat units and of firepower “. Russian forces had previously made a number of advances in the city, but Ukrainian fighters have retreated in recent days.
The statement also said that the Russian army was partly dependent on the separatist reserve forces in the Luhansk region.
“These troops are poorly equipped and trained and do not have heavy equipment compared to the usual Russian units,” the intelligence update said, adding that “this approach probably indicates a desire to limit casualties. regular Russian forces “.
Away from the battlefield, Ukraine’s national football players hope to secure a place in the World Cup when the team faces Wales on Sunday in Cardiff.
In the field of diplomacy, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was on his way to Serbia for talks with President Aleksandar Vucic earlier this week, followed by a visit to Turkey on Tuesday, where he is expected to the Russian envoy discusses Ukraine with his Turkish counterpart.
Turkey has been trying to work with the UN and countries at war to help pave the way for Ukrainian grain to be exported to Turkish ports, although no agreement seemed imminent.
Ukrainian authorities said Ukraine and Russia had exchanged bodies of killed troops in the first officially confirmed exchange. The Ukrainian Ministry for the Reintegration of the Occupied Territories said on Saturday that each side had exchanged 160 bodies two days earlier at the front in the southern Zaporizhzhia region.
Russian officials have not commented on the exchange.
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