Kyiv, Ukraine (AP) – Russia on Sunday aimed at Western military supplies to Ukraine, launching airstrikes in Kyiv claiming that destroyed tanks donated from abroad. Ukraine said the missiles hit a train repair shop. 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, as well as 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. weapons to the battlefield.
Russian airstrikes on the eastern city of Druzhkivka destroyed buildings and left at least one person dead, a Ukrainian official said on Sunday. Residents described waking up to the sound of missile strikes, with debris and glass falling around them.
“It was like a horror movie,” said Svitlana Romashkina.
Donetsk Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko urged city residents to leave, saying on Facebook that dilapidated buildings could be restored, but “we will not be able to recover the lives lost.”
The Russian Defense Ministry said that air-fired precision missiles were used to destroy workshops in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, including Druzhkivka, which were repairing damaged Ukrainian military equipment.
Meanwhile, 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 the possibility of a nuclear catastrophe if even a fragment of the missile hit the plant.
In the Telegram application, the Russian Ministry of Defense said that high-precision, long-range missiles fired from the air on the outskirts of Kyiv were used, destroying T-72 tanks supplied by Eastern European countries and other armored vehicles in a train car repair shop.
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 carriers to export grain.
“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, which said it would only compensate for similar rocket losses.
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. But the security package’s four medium-range high-mobility artillery rocket systems include rocket launchers that allow troops to hit a target and then move away quickly, which could be useful against Russian artillery. on the 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 has not commented on the report.
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 ability and the will to strike at the heart of Ukraine, while refocusing its efforts on capturing Ukrainian territory in the east.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24 has killed tens of thousands of civilians and incalculable troops, evicted millions from their homes, imposed heavy sanctions on Putin’s government and allies, and strangled exports of wheat and other critical cereals from Ukraine through the ports of the Black Sea. . This has led to a shortage of bread and rising prices that are hurting low-income countries in Africa, the Middle East and beyond.
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 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 reserve forces of the Lugansk separatists.
“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 the measure “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.
At the diplomatic level, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was on his way to Serbia for talks with President Aleksandar Vucic, followed by a visit to Turkey on Tuesday, where the war in Ukraine is expected to be a key topic.
Turkey has been trying to work with the UN and countries at war to 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. Ukraine said on Saturday that each side had exchanged 160 bodies two days earlier on the front line in the southern Zaporizhzhia region.
Russian officials have not commented on the exchange.
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