KYIV, Ukraine — Russia took goal Sunday at Western army provides for Ukraine, launching airstrikes on Kyiv that it claimed destroyed tanks donated from overseas, as Vladimir Putin warned that any Western deliveries of longer-range rocket programs would immediate Moscow to hit “objects that we haven’t yet struck.”
The Russian chief’s cryptic risk of army escalation didn’t specify what the brand new targets could be.
It got here days after the United States introduced plans to ship $700 million of safety help for Ukraine that features 4 precision-guided, medium-range rocket programs, in addition to helicopters, Javelin anti-tank programs, radars, tactical autos and extra.
Military analysts say Russia hopes to overrun Ukraine’s embattled jap industrial Donbas area, the place Russia-backed separatists have fought the Ukrainian authorities since 2014, earlier than any U.S. weapons which may flip the tide arrive. The Pentagon mentioned final week that it’ll take at the least three weeks to get the U.S. weapons onto the battlefield.
Ukraine mentioned the missiles aimed on the capital hit a practice restore store. Elsewhere, Russian airstrikes within the jap metropolis of Druzhkivka destroyed buildings and left at the least one individual useless, a Ukrainian official mentioned Sunday. Residents described waking to the sound of missile strikes, with rubble and glass falling down round them.
“It was like in a horror movie,” Svitlana Romashkina mentioned.
Donetsk Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko urged metropolis residents to depart, saying on Facebook that ruined buildings might be restored however “we won’t be able to bring back the lives lost.”
The Russian Defense Ministry mentioned air-launched precision missiles had been used to destroy workshops within the Donetsk area of jap Ukraine, together with in Druzhkivka, that had been repairing broken Ukrainian army gear.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s General Staff mentioned Russian forces fired 5 X-22 cruise missiles from the Caspian Sea towards Kyiv, and one was destroyed by air defenses. Four different missiles hit “infrastructure facilities,” however Ukraine mentioned there have been no casualties.
Nuclear plant operator Energoatom mentioned one cruise missile buzzed near the Pivdennoukrainsk nuclear plant, 220 miles to the south, and warned of the potential for a nuclear disaster if even one missile fragment hit the plant.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”