Smoke rises after missile attacks as Russia continues its attack on Ukraine in Kyiv on June 5. STRINGER / Reuters
Russia on Sunday struck the Ukrainian capital Kyiv early in the morning with missiles for the first time in more than a month, while Ukrainian officials said a counterattack on the main battlefield in the east had recaptured half of the city of Sievierodonetsk.
Dark smoke could be seen from many miles away after the attack on two outlying districts of Kyiv. Ukraine said the strike affected repair work on a railway wagon; Moscow said it had destroyed tanks sent by Eastern European countries to Ukraine.
At least one person was hospitalized although there were no immediate reports of deaths. The strike was a sudden reminder of the war in a capital city where normal life has largely returned since Russian forces were expelled from its outskirts in March.
“The Kremlin is resorting to more insidious attacks. Today’s missile attacks in Kyiv have only one goal: to kill as many as possible,” tweeted Ukrainian Presidential Adviser Mikhailo Podolyak.
Ukraine said Russia had carried out the attack using long-range missiles fired from the air by heavy bombers as far away as the Caspian Sea, a much more valuable weapon than the tanks Russia claimed to have struck.
Ukraine’s nuclear power operator said a Russian cruise missile had flown “critically low” over the country’s second largest nuclear power plant.
Sunday’s attack was the first major attack in Kyiv since late April, when a missile killed a journalist. Recent weeks have seen Russia focus its destructive force mainly on the front lines in the east and south, although Moscow occasionally attacks elsewhere in what it calls a campaign to degrade Ukraine’s military infrastructure. block Western arms shipments.
Russia has concentrated its forces in recent weeks on the small eastern industrial city of Sievierodonetsk, pursuing one of the largest ground battles of the war in an attempt to capture one of the two eastern provinces, Luhansk and Donetsk. he asserts on behalf of the separatist powers.
After a steady retreat into the city in recent days, Ukraine launched a counterattack, saying it took the Russians by surprise. After retaking part of the city, Ukrainian forces now control half of it and continue to push back the Russians, said Serhiy Gaidai, governor of Luhansk province that includes Sievierodonetsk.
The claims could not be independently verified. Both sides say they have caused heavy casualties in Sievierodonetsk, in a battle that could determine which side is leading the way to a protracted war of attrition in the coming months.
In another sign that Ukraine has slowed the Russian advance, Gaidai said evacuations resumed on Sunday in the part of Ukraine-controlled part of Luhansk province and that 98 people had fled. Russian forces have been trying for weeks to cut off the main road to encircle Ukrainian troops, and evacuations were halted last week after a journalist was killed in a bombing.
The British Defense Ministry said on Sunday that Ukraine’s counterattacks in Sievierodonetsk over the past 24 hours could slow down any operational momentum Russia has gained. Moscow was deploying ill-equipped separatist fighters in the city to limit the risk to its regular forces, he said.
In the neighboring province of Donetsk, Russian forces have advanced in recent days through the territory north of the Siverskiy Donets River, ahead of what Ukraine predicts could be a push on the main city of Sloviansk.
Ukrainian authorities say at least eight people were killed and 11 were injured in Russian bombings in the province overnight.
In a Sunday speech in Rome, Pope Francis noted that more than 100 days had passed since “the beginning of the armed aggression against Ukraine” and called the war “the denial of God’s dream.”
The United States said last week that it would send new advanced medium-range rocket systems to Ukraine, which Kyiv hopes will help tip the scales in the conflict. Washington has ruled out sending long-range ammunition and says Kyiv has vowed not to attack Russia.
In an interview on Russian state television, President Vladimir Putin downplayed the impact of the new rockets, but warned Washington not to send them any further.
The rockets Washington had promised so far were comparable to the Soviet-era weapons that Ukraine already had, Putin said.
“This is nothing new. It doesn’t change anything in essence,” Putin said. If Washington were to deliver longer-range rockets, “we will attack those targets that we have not yet been hitting,” he said. He also dismissed the impact of Western drones, saying Russia had been “cracking them like new”.
Kyiv on Saturday rebuked French President Emmanuel Macron for saying it was important not to “humiliate” Moscow.
Ukraine has risen in the face of what it considers pressures from some European allies to relinquish territory to achieve a ceasefire.
“Calls to prevent the humiliation of Russia can only humiliate France and all other countries that demand it,” Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted in response to Macron’s statements.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday pledged to continue defending his country when Russia’s assault on its neighbor reached its 100th day.
Reuters
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