Kyiv, Ukraine – Russia on Sunday aimed at Western military supplies to Ukraine, launching airstrikes on Kyiv claiming that destroyed tanks donated from abroad, as Vladimir Putin warned that any Western delivery of rocket systems long range would lead Moscow to hit “objects”. that we haven’t hit yet. “
The Russian leader’s cryptic threat of military escalation did not specify what the new targets might be. It came days after the United States announced plans to deliver $ 700 million in security assistance to Ukraine, including four precision-guided, medium-range rocket systems, as well as helicopters, Javelin anti-tank systems, radars, and tactical vehicles. and much more.
Military analysts say Russia expects to invade the industrial region of Donbas in eastern Ukraine, where Russia-backed separatists have been fighting the Ukrainian government since 2014, before the arrival of any U.S. weapons that can change course. The Pentagon said last week that it would take at least three weeks to bring U.S. weapons to the battlefield.
Ukraine said missiles aimed at the capital hit a train repair shop. Elsewhere, Russian airstrikes on the eastern city of Druzhkivka destroyed buildings and left at least one person dead, a Ukrainian official said. 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.
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, apparently on its way to Kyiv. He warned of the possibility of a nuclear catastrophe if even a fragment of a missile had hit the facility.
The missiles that hit Kyiv destroyed T-72 tanks supplied by Eastern European countries and other armored vehicles, the Russian Defense Ministry said in the Telegram application.
Subsequently, the Ukrainian railway authority directed journalists to a guided tour of a railway wagon repair plant in eastern Kyiv, which it said was hit by four missiles. Authorities said no military equipment had been stored and that the Associated Press did not see any remains in the destroyed building.
“There were no tanks, and you can only witness that.” said Serhiy Leshchenko, an adviser to the office of the Ukrainian president.
However, a government adviser told national television that military infrastructure was also the target. AP reporters saw a building burning in an area near the destroyed wagon plant. Two residents of this district said the smoke-inspired warehouse-type structure was part of a tank repair facility. Police blocking access to the site told an AP reporter that military authorities had banned imaging there.
In a televised interview on Sunday, Putin criticized Western arms deliveries to Ukraine, saying they intend to prolong the war.
“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.
Moscow also accused the West of shutting down lines on Sunday by forcing Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s plane to cancel a trip to Serbia for talks on Monday.
Residents of Serbia closed their airspace on Lavrov’s plane, ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told Italian television in comments to Russian news agencies. Earlier in the day, the Serbian newspaper Vecernje Novosti had said that Bulgaria, northern Macedonia and Montenegro would not allow Lavrov’s plane to pass.
“This is another closed channel of communication,” Zakharova said.
The Spanish newspaper El País reported on Sunday that Spain plans to supply anti-aircraft missiles and up to 40 Leopard 2 A4 tanks to Ukraine. The Spanish Ministry of Defense has not commented on the report.
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.
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.
In the cities of Sloviansk and Bakhmut, military cars and vehicles were seen speeding into the city from the direction of the front line. Dozens of military doctors and paramedics worked to evacuate Ukrainian civilians and military, and a hospital was busy treating the wounded, many wounded by artillery shelling.
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 regular Russian units,” the intelligence update said, adding that the measure “indicates a desire to limit the casualties they suffer. regular Russian forces “.
The two sides in the conflict have waged an information war, especially on television, along with military attacks. Russia’s Tass news agency reported on Sunday that Ukrainian forces had knocked out the television service in Donetsk, where it said a broadcast tower had collapsed. Ukrainian authorities did not immediately confirm the attack.
At the port of Mariupol in the Sea of Azov, which Russia claimed to have captured in May after a brutal siege for months, an aide to the mayor said supplies of water contaminated by rotting corpses and rubbish were causing dysentery and posed a threat of cholera and other diseases.
In a statement to the Ukrainian news agency Unian, Petro Andriushchenko said that the Russian authorities who control the city have imposed a quarantine. He did not describe the measures taken by the Russian authorities and his report could not be confirmed independently.
World Health Organization officials warned last month about the threat of cholera and other infectious diseases in Mariupol.
Also on Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy traveled to the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region, which is partly under Russian control. He received a battle report, thanked the troops, and met with refugees in what was only his second public visit outside the Kyiv area since the war began.
Away from the battlefield, Ukraine’s national footballers missed out on qualifying for a World Cup place, losing 1-0 to Wales in a thrilling match in Cardiff. Back home, some Ukrainians gathered at the bars to watch the match.
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Associated Press journalists David Keyton and Hanna Arhirova in Kyiv contributed to this report.
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