Russian forces launch missile attacks on northern Ukraine
Al JazeeraAt least six missiles hit the outskirts of the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, wounding 15 people, officials say. The renewed attacks come a day after the leader of pro-Kremlin separatists in the east, Denis Pushilin, urged Russian forces to “liberate Russian cities founded by the Russian people – Kyiv, Chernihiv, Poltava, Odesa, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Lutsk.” Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, also came under a barrage of shelling overnight, according to the mayor. Ukrainian media quoted Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovich as saying the operation to liberate Kherson was under way, with Kyiv’s forces planning to isolate Russian troops and leave them with three options – “retreat, if possible, surrender or be destroyed.” Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council, said the Russians are concentrating maximum forces in the direction of Kherson, warning, “A very large-scale movement of their troops has begun.” The British military said Ukraine has used its new, Western-supplied long-range artillery to damage at least three of the bridges across the Dnieper that Russia relies on to supply its forces. The British military also said it was likely that Ukrainian forces had also established a bridgehead south of a river which runs along the wider Kherson region’s northern border. Ukraine’s presidential office said Thursday morning that Russian shelling of cities and villages over the past 24 hours killed at least five civilians, all of them in the eastern Donetsk province, and wounded nine.