VINNYTSIA, Ukraine –
Russian missiles hit industrial facilities in a strategic city in southern Ukraine on Sunday, as Moscow also pushed to expand its gains in the country’s east.
Mykolaiv Mayor Oleksandr Senkevych said the missiles hit an infrastructure and industrial facility in the city, a key shipbuilding center in the Southern Bug River estuary. There was no immediate information on the victims.
Mykolaiv has faced regular Russian missile attacks in recent weeks as the Russians have sought to soften Ukrainian defenses.
The Russian military has declared the goal of isolating the entire Black Sea coast of Ukraine up to the Romanian border. If successful, such an effort would deal a severe blow to Ukraine’s economy and trade, and allow Moscow to secure a land bridge to the breakaway region of Transnistria in Moldova, which is home to a Russian military base.
Early in the campaign, Ukrainian forces repulsed Russian attempts to capture Mykolaiv, which lies near the Black Sea coast between Russian-occupied Crimea and the main Ukrainian port of Odessa. Since then, Russian troops have stopped their attempts to advance on the city, but have continued to target both Mykolaiv and Odessa with regular missile strikes.
Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Lt. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said on Sunday that Russian missiles destroyed a stockpile of Harpoon anti-ship missiles delivered to Ukraine by NATO allies, a claim that could not be independently confirmed.
The Russians, fearing a Ukrainian counteroffensive, also tried to strengthen their positions in the Kherson region near Crimea and in part of the northern Zaporizhzhia region, which they seized at the initial stage of the war.
The British Defense Ministry said on Sunday that Russia is moving troops and equipment between Kherson, Mariupol and Zaporizhzhia, and increasing security measures around Melitopol.
He added: “Given the pressures on Russian manpower, the reinforcement from the south as the fighting for Donbas continues indicates the seriousness with which Russian commanders view the threat.”
For now, the Russian military has focused on trying to take control of Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland, Donbas, where the most capable and well-equipped Ukrainian forces are located.
Ukraine says its forces still retain control of two small villages in the Luhansk region, one of two provinces that make up Donbas, and are successfully fending off Russian attempts to advance deeper into the second, the Donetsk region. .
The Ukrainian Army General Staff said on Sunday that Ukrainian troops thwarted Russian attempts to advance on Sloviansk, Ukraine’s key stronghold of Donetsk, and other attacks elsewhere in the region.
However, Russian officials are urging their troops to produce even more territorial gains. During a visit to the front lines on Saturday, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu issued an order “to further intensify unit actions in all operational areas.”
The Russian military said it has hit Ukrainian troops and artillery positions in Donbass in the latest series of attacks, including a US-supplied HIMARS multiple rocket launcher. The Russian claims could not be independently verified.
Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy head of the Russian Security Council chaired by President Vladimir Putin, responded to statements by Ukrainian officials that Kyiv might attack the bridge linking Crimea and Russia, warning that it would have devastating consequences for Ukrainian leaders.
“If that happens, the consequences will be obvious: they will momentarily face the Final Judgment,” Medvedev said on Sunday. “It would be very difficult for them to hide.”
Medvedev, who was once touted by the West as more liberal compared to Putin, said Russia will push its action in Ukraine until it fulfills its stated goal of “denazifying” and “demilitarizing” the country. He predicted that the continuation of the fighting “will certainly lead to the collapse of the existing regime” in Kyiv.
While concentrating on the Donbas, the Russians targeted areas across the country with missile strikes.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged Ukrainians not to fall for Russia’s attempts to scare them with warnings of horrendous missile attacks to come, which he said were aimed at dividing Ukrainian society.
“It is clear that no Russian missile or artillery will be able to break our unity or divert us from our path to a democratic and independent Ukraine,” he said in his evening video address to the nation. “And it is also clear that Ukrainian unity cannot be broken by lies or intimidation, falsifications or conspiracy theories.”
On Sunday in central Ukraine, family and friends attended the funeral of Liza Dmytrieva, a four-year-old girl who was killed in a Russian missile attack on Thursday. The girl with Down syndrome was on her way to see a speech therapist with her mother when the missiles hit the city of Vinnytsia. At least 24 people were killed, including Liza and two children, ages seven and eight. More than 200 people were injured, including Liza’s mother, who remains in an intensive care unit.
“I didn’t know Liza, but no one can go through this calmly,” said priest Vitalii Holoskevych, breaking down in tears as Liza’s body lay in a coffin with flowers and teddy bears at the 18th-century Transfiguration Cathedral in Vinnytsia.
“We know that evil cannot win,” he added.
In the Kharkiv region, at least three civilians were killed and three more wounded on Saturday in a predawn Russian attack on the city of Chuhuiv, just 120 kilometers (75 miles) from the Russian border, police said.
Lyudmila Krekshina, who lives in the apartment building that was attacked, said a husband and wife were killed, as well as an elderly man who lived downstairs.
Another resident said he was lucky to have survived.
“I was going to run and hide in the bathroom. I didn’t make it and that’s what saved me,” said Valentina Bushuyeva. Pointing to her destroyed apartment, she said, “There’s the bathroom, the explosion. The kitchen, half a room. And I survived because I stayed put.”
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Anna reported from Pokrovsk, Ukraine.