Three killed as Russia launched a night raid on Kiev
At least three people were killed, including two children, city officials said, after Russia launched another wave of overnight strikes on the Ukrainian capital.
A clinic and a nearby house were hit by falling debris in the Desnyan district of eastern Kiev, the city’s military administration said in a post on messaging app Telegram. Four other people were injured and taken to hospital.
Debris also fell on the nearby Dnipro region, according to Mayor Vitali Klitschko.
He said a total of 14 people were injured in the attack, while nine were taken to hospital and five others were treated at the scene.
main events
Some analysis here from the Institute for the Study of War on the recent attacks on Russian soil. The US-based think tank says official responses from Moscow “It remains, most likely, insufficient to satisfy the desire of the Russian ultra-nationalist information space to escalate the war.”
Belgorod governor Vyacheslav GladkovHe, who evacuated children from the border regions, called on Russian troops to take Kharkiv in order to create a barrier between Belgorod and Ukraine.
But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to comment on Gladkov’s comments earlier this week and said on Wednesday that Moscow had no plans to declare martial law in the wake of Tuesday’s drone attack on Moscow.
The think tank adds:
Former Russian general and hardline nationalist Igor Girkin has criticized Peskov, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu for their reluctance to counter attacks against Russian territory.
Russian bloggers have complained about the lack of Russian military escalation to secure the border regions of Belgorod and Kursk states since at least September 2022, often criticizing the Kremlin for not responding to attacks against Russian territory and failing to devote itself fully to the war effort.
The evacuations and Peskov’s comments are largely consistent with Putin’s unwillingness and inability to meaningfully escalate the war without widespread general and economic mobilization, as previously assessed by the ISW.
The governor said that Belgorod was bombed during the night
ruler of Russia Belgorod The region bordering Ukraine, says the city of Chebykino was also bombed overnight.
Vyacheslav Gladkov, in one of his posts on Telegram, said that “the shelling by the Armed Forces of Ukraine continued for an hour.” He said two people were injured.
He also said that the Russian air defenses in the area had succeeded. The Guardian was unable to verify the attack, which would be the fourth time that Ukrainian artillery has shelled the city of Chebykino this week.
Another image has emerged from the nightly strikes on the wires, courtesy of the military department in Kyiv, this time of the clinic in Desnyan that officials say has been badly damaged.
The night attack was launched by ground-based missile systems, Serhiy Popkosaid the head of the military department in Kiev in a Telegram post.
He said that Ukrainian air defenses destroyed all detected targets, and falling debris caused casualties. He said an update on the type and number of missiles used in the raid would be provided later by the Air Force.
In Dasnian district, he said three people, including two children, were killed and up to 10 others injured when debris fell on a clinic and a nearby multi-storey apartment building.
In the Dnipro region, a residential building was damaged, parked cars caught fire, and rubble fell on a road.
All votes are clear in Kyiv
All clarity was presented in Kiev, about an hour after the air raid siren sounded.
It is still not clear whether the attack was by drones or missiles. Reuters reports:
Discussions on social media suggested it was a missile attack, given the short time between the announcement of the airstrike alert and its impact.
The first images come from Russia’s latest strike on Kiev. This shot from the Kiev Military Department shows an apartment building damaged by falling debris in the Desnyan district of the city, where three people, including two children, were killed.
While we wait for more information to come out of Kiev, here’s some context. Last week was the first time Moscow engaged in a large-scale drone attack since it launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
No one was hurt in the raid by more than 30 drones on Tuesday, but it was part of a series of drone strikes and sabotage operations behind enemy lines that have intensified in recent weeks ahead of an expected counter-attack in Ukraine.
The attack on Moscow came as Russia launched an increasing number of attacks on Kiev, including a rare daytime raid on Tuesday, over the past month.
The attacks appear to have been an attempt to exhaust Ukraine’s air defences.
Three killed as Russia launched a night raid on Kiev
At least three people were killed, including two children, city officials said, after Russia launched another wave of overnight strikes on the Ukrainian capital.
A clinic and a nearby house were hit by falling debris in the Desnyan district of eastern Kiev, the city’s military administration said in a post on messaging app Telegram. Four other people were injured and taken to hospital.
Debris also fell on the nearby Dnipro region, according to Mayor Vitali Klitschko.
He said a total of 14 people were injured in the attack, while nine were taken to hospital and five others were treated at the scene.
Opening summary
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine with me, Helen Livingston.
Kiev was once again hit by Russian strikes overnight, killing at least three people and wounding four others so far, according to the city’s military department. Falling debris hit a clinic in the city’s Destinian neighborhood, as well as a nearby house. The city’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said two of the dead were children.
Debris also fell on the Dnipro region of the capital, where, according to Klitschko, another person was injured.
Other major developments:
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The French President, Emmanuel Macron, has said that a negotiated peace in Ukraine should probably take priority over the trial of the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, for war crimes. In a speech in Bratislava, he said: “If in a few months you have the opportunity to negotiate with the current Russian political power, the question you will ask is the balance between trial and negotiation. And you will have to negotiate with the leaders you have, de facto, even if you have to day Next you judge them before international justice…otherwise you can put yourselves in an impossible situation where you say “I want you to go to jail but you are the only one I can negotiate with”.
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Macron also urged NATO to provide “concrete and credible” security guarantees to Ukraine, arguing that it was in the West’s interest to do so because Kiev “protects Europe today.”. The leaders will meet in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, in July to discuss NATO membership for Ukraine.
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The United States announced a new $300 million weapons package for Ukraine, including air defense systems and tens of millions of rounds of ammunition, but warned Kiev that American weapons should not be used for attacks inside Russia. “We’ve been very clear with the Ukrainians privately — we’ve certainly made it clear publicly — that we don’t support attacks inside Russia,” said National Security Council spokesman John Kirby.
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A German government spokesman said that Ukraine had the right to attack Russian territory because it was considered self-defense. In an interview with the German news website Deutsche Welle, Stephen Hebbestreit said: “International law allows Ukraine to carry out strikes on the territory of Russia for the purpose of self-defense.”
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Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia does not plan to declare martial law after Tuesday’s large-scale drone strike on Moscow.. The Kremlin’s comments came after a number of senior Russian officials and pro-war figures, including Chechnya’s ruler Ramzan Kadyrov, urged Putin to respond to the drone attacks by declaring a state of all-out war.
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Russia said that Ukrainian artillery shelling hit the Russian town of Chebykino on the Ukrainian border for the third time this week, injuring four people, while drones attacked two oil refineries. 65-80 km east of Russia’s largest oil export ports. Russian officials did not blame the drone attacks and said that a fire had been put out in one of the halls.
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A source close to the talks told Reuters the United Nations had suggested that Kiev, Moscow and Ankara begin preparations to transport Russian ammonia through Ukraine as they try to salvage a deal that would allow safe grain exports in the Black Sea.. Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelensky, in his nightly video address, accused Russia of obstructing all activities in the port of Pivdenye, with 1.5 million tons of agricultural products unable to move.
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There are only 500 people left in Bakhmut, the city in eastern Ukraine that has been hit by heavy fighting in the past year, according to its mayor. The figure from Oleksii Reva, reported by the Ukrainian news agency UNIAN, is a fraction of its pre-war population of 70,000.
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Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Russian mercenary group Wagner, said he had asked prosecutors to investigate “crimes” committed by top Russian defense officials. before and during the invasion of Ukraine.
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An Iraqi national fighting with Wagner was killed in Ukraine in early April, Prigozhin told Reuters, the first confirmed case of someone from the Middle East dying in the conflict. The RIA FAN news website also reported that Abbas Abuther Witwit died on April 7, a day after arriving at Wagner Hospital in the Russian-controlled eastern city of Luhansk.
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Russia claimed to have destroyed the last major warship of the Ukrainian Navy, Yury Oliverenko, which it said was stationed in the southern port of Odessa.. The Russian Air Force said it attacked the ship on May 29. Ukraine did not comment.
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Analyzes from the Kyiv Post indicate that about 90% of the 500 missiles and drones Russia launched in May in attacks on Ukraine failed, at a cost of $1.7 billion.. It added that the Ukrainian Air Force destroyed 533 aircraft, including 401 Shahed-136 drones, each costing about $20,000.
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The deputy head of the Russian Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, said Britain was Moscow’s “eternal enemy”. He said any British official who facilitated the war in Ukraine could be considered legitimate military targets.
