Russia on Sunday aimed at Western military supplies to Ukraine, launching airstrikes on Kyiv that claimed destroyed tanks donated from abroad, as Vladimir Putin warned that any Western delivery of long-range rocket systems would bring Moscow to hitting “objects we don’t have.” still beaten ”.
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.
Deadly risk faced by Ukrainians returning home
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.
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 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.
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during an interview with the Russia-1 television channel at the Bocharov Ruchei residence in the Black Sea resort town of Sochi, Russia, on Friday, June 3, 2022. Putin blamed the West on Friday for emerging global food and energy crises. and he reiterated his government’s offers of safe passage for vessels exporting grain from Ukraine if the mines are removed from the waters. (Mikhail Klimentyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP) (AP) An injured Ukrainian soldier is evacuated to a hospital in the Donetsk Oblast region of eastern Ukraine on Sunday, June 5, 2022. ( AP Photo / Bernat Armangue) (AP)
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 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.
A worker looks at a railway service facility affected by a Russian missile attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Sunday, June 5, 2022. (AP Photo / Natacha Pisarenko) (AP) A resident enters a crater caused by an attack missiles in Druzhkivka, eastern Ukraine, Sunday, June 5, 2022. (AP Photo / Bernat Armangue) (AP)
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. “Its real goal 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.
Residents inspect damage after missile attack in Druzhkivka, eastern Ukraine, Sunday, June 5, 2022. (AP Photo / Bernat Armangue) (AP) A broken glass is in the bed of a house damaged after a strike in Druzhkivka, Ukraine, Sunday, June 5, 2022. (AP Photo / Bernat Armangue) (AP)
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 plans 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.
In the eastern Darnystki district of Kyiv, a pillar of smoke filled the air with a pungent odor on 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.
Smoke rises after Russian missile attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Sunday, June 5, 2022. (AP Photo / Natacha Pisarenko) (AP)
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 on Sunday. 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.
Away from the battlefield, Ukraine’s national footballers lost their place in the World Cup qualifiers, losing 1-0 to Wales on a thrilling mission in Cardiff. Back home, some Ukrainians gathered at the bars to watch the match.