Ukraine news: Russian forces resumed sporadic attacks on Kyiv

Angered by the loss of a warship in the Black Sea and outraged by what it sees as Ukrainian air strikes on Russian territory, the Russian military command had warned a day earlier of new attacks on the Ukrainian capital. and said they were targeting military sites.

Associated Press reporters have been documenting civilian deaths during strikes this week in the eastern city of Kharkiv, and each day brings new discoveries about civilian victims in The war shattered European security. In the Kyiv area alone, Ukrainian authorities announced that they had found the bodies of more than 900 civilians, most of them shot dead, after Russian troops withdrew two weeks ago.

Smoke rose early Saturday from eastern Kyiv as Mayor Vitali Klitschko reported on a strike in the city’s Darnytski district. He said rescuers and paramedics were at the scene, and information on possible deaths would be made available later. The mayor advised residents who had fled the city earlier during the war not to return for their own safety.

It was not immediately clear from the ground what was hit. Darnytskyi is a large district on the southeastern edge of the capital, consisting of a mixture of Soviet-style apartment buildings, newer transport hubs and full-sized retail stores, industrial and residential complexes. .

The Russian forces used “high-precision long-range weapons launched from the air” against an armored vehicle factory in Kyiv, a spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry said. He did not specify exactly where the factory in Kyiv is located, but there is one in the Darnytskyi district.

This is the second attack in the Kyiv region in two days. Another hit a rocket factory on Friday as tentative signs of pre-war life began to reappear in the capital after Russian troops failed to capture the city and withdrew. retreat to focus on launching a large-scale offensive in eastern Ukraine.

Kyiv was not the only target on Saturday. In eastern Ukraine, an explosion believed to have been caused by a missile hit Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, according to firefighters and AP reporters at the scene.

The strike near an outdoor market along with residential and industrial buildings killed one person and injured at least 18, according to rescuers who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose information. believe.

Meanwhile, the governor of the Lviv region in western Ukraine – far from the Russian border and long considered a safe zone – said that a Russian Su-35 jet that had taken off from neighboring Belarus had struck. this area. Maksym Kozytskyy did not provide details on possible casualties or damage.

Fighting continued in the southern port city of Mariupol, where locals reported seeing Russian troops digging up bodies. According to Regional Governor Oleh Sinehubov, in the northeastern city of Kharkiv, a shelling on a residential area killed seven people, including a 7-month-old child, and wounded 34.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused the Russian military of occupying the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions in the south in order to terrorize civilians and hunt down anyone who had served in the Ukrainian army or government.

“The occupiers thought this would make it easier for them to control this territory. But they were very wrong. They are fooling themselves,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video speech. “Russia’s problem is that it is not accepted – and will never be – by the entire Ukrainian people. Russia has lost Ukraine forever.”

Officials believe 2,500 to 3,000 Ukrainian troops died in the fighting, Zelenskyy told CNN in an interview. He said about 10,000 people were injured and “it is difficult to say how many will survive.”

The United Nations human rights office said it had confirmed the deaths of 1,982 civilians but warned that this number did not include those killed in blockade cities like Mariupol and the actual toll was closer to will certainly be significantly higher.

Russia’s warning of intensifying attacks on the capital comes after Russian authorities accused Ukraine on Thursday of injuring seven people and damaging about 100 residential buildings with air strikes. in Bryansk, an area bordering Ukraine. Authorities in another Russian border region also reported shelling from Ukraine.

Ukrainian officials have not confirmed the attack targets in Russia and the reports cannot be independently verified.

However, Ukrainian officials hit a key Russian warship with a missile earlier this week, in a major victory for Ukraine and a symbolic defeat for Russia.

A senior US defense official said the US believes the Moskva has been hit by at least one Neptune anti-ship missile. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence assessments.

The Moskva, named after the Russian capital, sank while being towed to port on Thursday after suffering heavy damage. Moscow did not acknowledge any attack, saying only that a fire blew up the ammunition depot on the ship.

The sinking reduced Russia’s firepower in the Black Sea and seemed to symbolize Moscow’s fortunes during an eight-week invasion widely seen as a historic mistake after Russia withdrew from the Kyiv area and much of northern Ukraine.

After the withdrawal, the bodies were left on the streets of towns around Kyiv or temporarily buried. Andriy Nebytov, head of the regional police force, cited police data showing 95% of deaths from gunshot wounds.

“We therefore understand that under (Russia’s) occupation, people were simply executed in the streets,” Nebytov said.

More and more bodies have been found under the rubble and in mass graves, he added, with the largest number found in Bucha, more than 350. According to Nebytov, utility workers have collected and buried the bodies on the outskirts of Kyiv while it remained under Russian control. He added that the Russian military was “hunting down” those who expressed strong pro-Ukrainian views.

In Mariupol, the city council said Friday that locals reported that the Russian military was digging up bodies for burial in residential yards and not allowing new burials of “those killed by them.”

“Why the exhumation was being carried out and where the bodies will be taken is still unknown,” the council said on the messaging app Telegram.

Oleksandr Motuzyanyk, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, said that Russia first used a Tu-223 long-range bomber to attack the city.

Mariupol has been blockaded by Russian forces since the early days of the invasion, and Ukraine’s dwindling defenses have resisted an encirclement at the cost of terror leaving civilians alone trapped and starved to death.

The mayor this week said the city’s death toll could pass 20,000. Other Ukrainian officials have said they hope to find evidence of atrocities in Mariupol like those found in Bucha and other towns outside Kyiv.

The capture of Mariupol would allow Russian forces to the south to advance through the annexed Crimean Peninsula, fully linking up with the military in the Donbas region, Ukraine’s eastern industrial hub and the target of the offensive. public is lurking.

It is uncertain when Russia will launch a full-scale operation.

Also on Friday, a Ukrainian official in the region said seven people were killed and 27 wounded when Russian forces opened fire on a bus carrying civilians in the village of Borovaya, near Kharkiv. Claims could not be independently verified.

Dmytro Chubenko, a spokesman for the regional prosecutor’s office, told the Suspilne news website that authorities had opened criminal proceedings in connection with the alleged “violation of the laws and customs of war, in conjunction with the premeditated murder.