Putin warns the West against sending weapons; Kyiv hit by missiles


Kyiv, Ukraine (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s new warning to the West against sending longer-range rocket systems to Ukraine came as his forces claimed to have destroyed Western military supplies in their first-of-its-kind airstrikes. against the Ukrainian capital in more than a month.

The attack showed that Russia still had the ability and the will to attack the heart of Ukraine, despite refocusing its efforts to capture territory in the east.

Putin’s comments, in a television interview that aired on Sunday, came days after the US, radars, tactical vehicles and more.

“All this fuss around additional arms deliveries, in my opinion, has only one goal: to prolong the armed conflict as long as possible,” Putin said. He insisted that such supplies were unlikely to change the military situation of the Ukrainian government, which he said was simply making up for the losses of similar rockets.

If Kyiv gets longer-range rockets, Putin added, Moscow “will draw appropriate conclusions and use our means of destruction, of which we have many, to attack objects that we have not yet attacked.”

The United States has stopped short of offering Ukraine longer-range weapons that could shoot deep into Russia.

Military analysts say Russia hopes to invade eastern Ukraine’s beleaguered Donbas industrial region before the arrival of any US weapons that could turn the tide. The Pentagon said last week that it will take at least three weeks to get US weapons to the battlefield. Russian-backed separatists have been fighting the Ukrainian government since 2014 in Donbas.

Moscow also accused the West of shutting down lines of communication by forcing Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s plane to cancel a trip to Serbia for Monday’s talks.

Serbia’s neighbors closed their airspace to Lavrov’s plane, ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told Italian television in comments reported by Russian news agencies. Earlier in the day, the Serbian newspaper Vecernje Novosti had said that Bulgaria, North Macedonia and Montenegro would not allow Lavrov’s plane to pass.

“This is another closed channel of communication,” Zakharova said.

Missiles that hit the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on Sunday destroyed T-72 tanks supplied by Eastern European countries and other armored vehicles, the Russian Defense Ministry said on the Telegram app.

Ukraine, however, said the missiles hit a train repair shop. Ukraine’s railway authority took journalists on a guided tour of the repair plant in eastern Kyiv that it said was hit by four missiles. The authority said no military equipment had been stored there, and Associated Press reporters saw no remains of any in the facility’s destroyed building.

“There were no tanks, and you can witness this.” said Serhiy Leshchenko, adviser to the office of the Ukrainian president.

However, a government adviser said on national television that military infrastructure was also targeted. AP reporters saw a burning building in an area near the destroyed railcar plant. Two residents of that district said the warehouse-like structure spewing smoke was part of a tank repair facility. Police blocking access to the site told an AP reporter that military authorities had banned taking pictures there.

The Russian Defense Ministry also said air-launched precision missiles were used to destroy workshops in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, including in Druzhkivka, that were repairing damaged Ukrainian military equipment.

And Ukraine’s General Staff said Russian forces fired five X-22 cruise missiles from the Caspian Sea toward Kyiv, and one was destroyed by air defenses. Another four missiles hit “infrastructure facilities”, but Ukraine said there were no casualties.

Before the attack early on Sunday, Kyiv had not faced a Russian air attack since the visit of UN Secretary-General António Guterres on April 28.

Russian forces remained focused on capturing the eastern Ukrainian cities of Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk. To the west of those towns, in the towns of Sloviansk and Bakhmut, cars and military vehicles were seen speeding into the town from the direction of the front line. Dozens of military doctors and paramedic ambulances worked to evacuate Ukrainian civilians and servicemen, many of whom had been injured by artillery shelling.

The UK military said in its daily intelligence update that Ukrainian counterattacks in Sieverodonetsk were “likely blunting the operational momentum Russian forces previously gained by massing combat units and firepower.” Russian forces have been making a number of advances in the city, but Ukrainian fighters have pushed back in recent days.

The statement also said Russia’s military relied in part on the reserve forces of the Lugansk separatists.

“These troops are poorly equipped and trained, and lack heavy equipment compared to regular Russian units,” the intelligence update said, adding that the move “indicates a desire to limit casualties suffered by regular Russian forces.”

In other developments:

— In the Azov Sea port of Mariupol, which Russia claimed to have captured in May after a months-long siege, an aide to the mayor said water supplies contaminated by rotting corpses and garbage were causing dysentery and representing a threat of cholera and other diseases. In comments carried by Ukraine’s Unian news agency, Petro Andriushchenko said the Russian authorities who control the city have imposed a quarantine. The report of him could not be independently confirmed.

— Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy traveled to the Zaporizhzhia region in the southeast, which is partly under Russian control. He received a battle report, thanked troops and met with refugees in what was only his second public visit outside the Kyiv area since the war began.

— The Spanish newspaper El País reported that Spain planned to supply anti-aircraft missiles and up to 40 Leopard 2 A4 main battle tanks to Ukraine. Spain’s Defense Ministry did not comment on the report.

— And far from the battlefield, Ukraine’s national footballers failed to qualify for the World Cup, losing 1-0 to Wales in an emotionally charged match in Cardiff. Back home, some Ukrainians would gather in bars to watch the game.

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Associated Press writers David Keyton and Hanna Arhirova in Kyiv contributed to this report.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the Ukraine war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

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