Kyiv was hit by four Russian missile strikes on Sunday morning for the first time in three weeks, during which life had slowly returned to the Ukrainian capital in relative calm.
Plumes of smoke rose over the central Shevchenkivskyi district, home to a cluster of universities, restaurants and art galleries, at 6:22 a.m. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said two residential buildings had been attacked in what called an attempt to “intimidate the Ukrainians” ahead of the NATO summit in Madrid starting Tuesday.
Around 11 am, there were at least several unconfirmed reports of two more explosions in Kyiv.
Two people, a woman from Russia, were taken to hospital and a seven-year-old girl was rescued from the rubble, Klitschko said. “She is alive,” she said on Telegram, adding that rescuers were trying to “save her mother.” The said more residents could be trapped under the rubble.
“We heard four explosions, they were very loud,” said Marina, 33, a resident of an apartment building near the missile attack. “A whole building was shaking. Luckily, our apartment is fine. We are originally from Chernihiv, we have lived through all this and now again… I don’t know if I want to move, I need to calm down and then decide.”
The area was previously targeted on April 28 in a threatening show of defiance while the UN secretary-general was visiting the city and a few hours after Joe Biden announced he would double US military and economic aid to Ukraine.
Vira Hyrych, a Ukrainian Radio Liberty journalist who also worked for Voice of America, was killed in her apartment in the attack.
Ukrainian parliamentarian Oleksiy Goncharenko wrote on Telegram that “according to preliminary data, 14 missiles were launched against the kyiv and Kyiv region.” Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko said on Telegram that a kindergarten was targeted in the attacks.
According to Ukrainian military officials, Kh-101 air-launched cruise missiles were fired from planes over the Caspian Sea. Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said missile strikes could continue throughout the day in Kyiv.
The capital has not come under Russian bombardment since June 5, when Russian forces attacked the city with cruise missiles fired from the Caspian Sea, hitting a railway repair facility.
Meanwhile, in eastern Ukraine, Russian forces were trying to isolate Lysychansk, having reduced its twin city, Sievierodonetsk. to rubble
Lysychansk will become the next main focus of the fighting, as Moscow has launched massive artillery bombardments and airstrikes in areas far from the heart of the eastern battles.
The Russian Interfax news agency said Russian troops had entered Lysychansk, the last city held by Kyiv in Luhansk province, on Saturday after Ukrainian forces were ordered to withdraw from Sievierodonetsk.
If Lysychansk falls, the entire Luhansk region, which together with Donetsk forms the eastern Donbas region, could fall under Russian control, marking another strategic breakthrough for Russian President Vladimir Putin since the beginning of the invasion.
“The people’s militia of the Luhansk people’s republic and the Russian army have entered the city of Lysychansk,” Andrei Marochko, a representative of the pro-Russian separatists, said on Telegram. “Currently there are street fights going on,” he added.
The claim could not be independently verified and there was no immediate comment from the Ukrainian side.
Serhiy Haidai, the governor of Luhansk province, said on Facebook that Russian and separatist fighters were trying to blockade Lysychansk from the south and that due to shelling the city “is almost unrecognizable.”
Haidai said the Azot chemical plant in Sievierodonetsk and the villages of Synetsky and Pavlograd, among others, were bombed, but did not mention casualties.
In a separate event on Saturday, 20 rockets “fired from the territory of Belarus and from the air” targeted the village of Desna in the northern Chernihiv region, Ukraine’s Northern Military Command said.
He added that infrastructure was hit, but no casualties were reported.
Although officially not involved in the conflict, Belarus has provided logistical support to Moscow since the beginning of the invasion.
“Today’s attack is directly related to the Kremlin’s efforts to attract Belarus as a co-belligerent in the war in Ukraine,” the Ukrainian intelligence service said.
The attack came ahead of a planned meeting between Putin and his Belarusian counterpart and close ally, Alexander Lukashenko, in St. Petersburg on Saturday.
During the meeting, Putin said he would deliver missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads to Belarus in the coming months.
“In the coming months, we will transfer to Belarus the Iskander-M tactical missile systems, which can use ballistic or cruise missiles, in their conventional and nuclear versions,” Putin said in a broadcast on Russian television.
The development came on the eve of a G7 leaders’ meeting in the Bavarian Alps on Sunday, to be hosted by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, which will be dominated by Ukraine and its far-reaching consequences, from power shortages to a food crisis
Additional reporting by Artem Mazhulin
Reference-www.theguardian.com