The Russian army threatened on Wednesday to attack command centers in the Ukrainian capital kyiv, which Moscow had so far renounced taking, if Ukrainian troops continue to attack Russian territory.
“We see sabotage attempts and shelling by Ukrainian forces against positions on the territory of the Russian Federation,” Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said.
If these events continue, the Russian military will attack decision-making centers, including in kyiv, which the Russian military has refrained from doing so far,” he added.
Russian forces withdrew from the kyiv region in late March. For a month, they tried to surround the capital and bombarded it.
Among other things, Moscow has hypersonic missiles, impossible to destroy in flight due to their speed, and says it has already used them in Ukraine.
The spokesman for the Russian Ministry of Defense also announced on Wednesday that the port area of Mariupol, a strategic city in southeastern Ukraine, had been conquered.
On Monday, the head of the pro-Russian Donetsk separatists, who are fighting alongside the Russian army in Mariupol, made the same announcement.
“The remnants of the Ukrainian and Nazi units [del batallón] Azov present in the city are blocked and deprived of the possibility to get out of the encirclement,” Konashenkov said on Wednesday.
He also claimed that Moscow had destroyed 36 Ukrainian military targets during attacks in the last 24 hours.