Kyiv, Ukraine — Three Russian missiles smashed into the downtown district of Chernihiv, northern Ukraine, on Wednesday, striking an eight-story apartment building and killing at least 14 people, according to police.
According to Ukrainian emergency services, the morning attack injured at least 61 individuals, two of them are minors. Chernihiv is located 150 kilometers (90 miles) north of the capital, Kyiv, near the border with Russia and Belarus, and has a population of approximately 250,000.
Russian Missiles Slam Into A Ukraine City And Kill 14 People As The War Approaches A Critical Stage
The latest Russian shelling came as the war entered its third year and approached a critical juncture, with Ukraine’s Western partners’ lack of additional military backing increasingly leaving it vulnerable to the Kremlin’s larger forces.
During the winter months, Russia made no significant advances along the 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line, instead relying on attrition warfare. However, Ukraine’s lack of artillery ammunition, manpower, and armored vehicles has allowed the Russians to advance gradually, according to military analysts.
A critical factor for Ukraine is Washington’s delay in approving an aid package worth approximately $60 billion. House Speaker Mike Johnson said on Sunday that he would try to advance the deal this week.
According to the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think organization, Ukraine’s situation has become critical.
“The Russians are breaking out of positional warfare and beginning to restore maneuver to the battlefield because of the delays in the provision of U.S. military assistance to Ukraine,” the Institute of Strategic Studies (ISS) stated in a report released.
Russian Missiles Slam Into A Ukraine City And Kill 14 People As The War Approaches A Critical Stage
The statement stated, “Ukraine cannot hold the present lines now without the rapid resumption of U.S. assistance, particularly air defense and artillery that only the U.S. can provide rapidly and at scale.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has urged Western countries to send their own countries with more air defense weaponry, notably more surface-to-air Patriot-guided missiles. The attack on Chernihiv, he continued, “would not have happened if Ukraine had received enough air defense equipment and if the world’s determination to counter Russian terror was also sufficient.”
In an interview with PBS earlier this week, Zelenskyy stated that Ukraine recently ran out of air defense missiles while defending against a major missile and drone attack that destroyed one of Ukraine’s largest power plants as part of a recent Russian campaign targeting energy infrastructure.
As he prepared to attend a meeting of the Group of Seven foreign ministers in Italy, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba reiterated Zelenskyy’s need for additional assistance.
“We need at least seven more Patriot batteries to protect our cities and economic centers from destruction,” Kuleba told the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung in an interview published Wednesday. “Why is it so difficult to find seven Patriot batteries?”
Ukrainian forces are digging in and building fortifications in preparation for a big Russian onslaught, which Kyiv authorities warn might begin as early as next month.
Ukraine is conducting long-range drone and missile strikes behind Russian lines to damage Moscow’s war machine.
Russia’s defense ministry announced Wednesday that a Ukrainian drone was shot down over the Tatarstan region early Wednesday. That is the same location that Ukraine’s deepest strike into Russia so far targeted in early April, approximately 1,200 kilometers (745 miles) east of Ukraine.
Ukrainian drone developers have been increasing the weapon’s range.
The ministry reported that another Ukrainian drone was shot down over the Mordovia region, around 350 kilometers (220 miles) east of Moscow. That’s 700 kilometers (430 miles) from the Ukrainian border.
Russian Missiles Slam Into A Ukraine City And Kill 14 People As The War Approaches A Critical Stage
About an hour before the Mordovia incident, due to safety concerns, Russia’s civil aviation authority grounded flights at airports in two of the country’s largest cities, Nizhny Novgorod and Kazan.
According to unsubstantiated accounts, a Ukrainian missile struck an airfield in occupied Crimea. Neither Russian nor Ukrainian officials verified the strike, although local police momentarily stopped the road near the airfield. According to the local mayor, a blast in the region destroyed windows in a mosque and a residential house.
SOURCE – (AP)
