Powerful explosions were heard in kyiv early on Friday, and air raid sirens blared across Ukraine as residents braced for further Russian attacks after Moscow’s main warship in the Black Sea sank following a fire. .
The blasts appear to be among the most significant in Ukraine’s capital region since Russian troops withdrew from the area earlier this month in preparation for battles to the south and east.
Ukraine claimed responsibility for the sinking of the Moskva, saying the Soviet-era flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet was hit by one of its missiles. The ship sank Thursday night as she was being towed to port, the Russian Defense Ministry said.
More than 500 crew members aboard the missile cruiser were evacuated after munitions on board exploded, the ministry said, without acknowledging an attack. Ukraine says it hit the warship with a locally made Neptune anti-ship missile.
The loss of the ship comes as Russia’s navy continues its bombardment of Ukrainian cities on the Black Sea nearly 50 days after it launched the invasion. Residents of Odessa and Mariupol, on the adjacent Sea of Azov, have been preparing for further Russian attacks.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky alluded to the sunken warship in an early morning video in which he warned of Russian intentions to attack the eastern Donbas region, including Mariupol.
Zelensky paid tribute to all “those who stopped the advance of the endless convoys of Russian military equipment… Those who showed that Russian ships can go… to the bottom.”
There were no immediate reports of damage after explosions in kyiv, Kherson in the south, the eastern city of Kharkiv and the city of Ivano-Frankivsk in the west. Ukrainian media reported power outages in parts of kyiv.
Air-raid sirens sounded in all regions of Ukraine shortly after midnight on Friday and continued to sound in the eastern regions of Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia even after the others fell silent, Ukrainian media said.
Reuters could not immediately verify the reports.
Whatever the cause of the loss of Moskva, the episode is a setback for Russia. If Ukraine’s claim that it hit the ship in a missile attack turns out to be true, the attack will go down in history as one of the highest-profile naval attacks so far this century.
The Russian Defense Ministry said it is investigating the cause of the fire on board. The United States said it did not have enough information to determine whether the Moskva was hit by a missile.
“[But] Certainly, the way this has played out, it’s a huge blow to Russia,” National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said.
Russian forces have withdrawn from parts of northern Ukraine after suffering heavy losses and failing to capture kyiv. Ukraine and its Western allies say Moscow is redeploying for a new offensive in the eastern Donbas region.
Russia launched its assault in part to dissuade Ukraine from joining NATO. But the invasion has pushed Finland, which shares a long border with Russia, and nearby Sweden to consider joining the US-led military alliance.
Moscow warned NATO on Thursday that if Sweden and Finland join forces, Russia would deploy nuclear weapons and hypersonic missiles to a Russian enclave in the Baltic Sea, in the heart of Europe.
Commenting on Russia’s military setbacks, CIA Director William Burns said the threat that Russia could use nuclear weapons in Ukraine cannot be taken lightly, but that the agency has not seen much practical evidence to back it up. that concern.
Moscow describes its invasion as a “special military operation” aimed at demilitarizing Ukraine. kyiv and its allies say Russia has launched an unprovoked war that has caused more than 4.6 million people to flee abroad and thousands dead or wounded.
Russia’s navy has fired cruise missiles into Ukraine and its activities in the Black Sea are crucial to supporting ground operations in the south and east, where it is fighting to take full control of Mariupol.
Russia said on Wednesday that more than 1,000 Ukrainian marines from one of the units still holding out in Mariupol had surrendered. Ukrainian officials did not comment.
If taken, Mariupol would be the first major city to fall to Russian forces since they invaded, allowing Moscow to reinforce a land corridor between separatist-held areas of eastern Donbas and the Crimea region it seized and annexed. in 2014.
Ukraine said tens of thousands of people were believed to have been killed in Mariupol, where efforts were underway to evacuate civilians.
The Russian Defense Ministry said Thursday night that 815 people had been evacuated from the city in the past 24 hours. Ukraine said that figure was 289.
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