Russian strike kills 25 as Kremlin looks to annex more Ukraine regions
The HinduRussia pounded Ukrainian cities with missiles, rockets, and suicide drones, with one strike, reported having killed 25 people, as it moved on Friday to fold more seized Ukrainian territory into Russia itself and under the protection of its nuclear umbrella, opening an internationally condemned dangerous new phase of the seven-month war. Russian and Western analysts reported the imminent Ukrainian encirclement of the city of Lyman, that — if retaken — could open the path for Ukraine to push deep into one of the very regions that Russia is annexing. In the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, anti-aircraft missiles that Russia has repurposed as ground-attack weapons rained down on people who were waiting in cars to cross into Russian-occupied territory, so they could bring family members back across the front lines, said the deputy head of Ukraine's presidential office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko. The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said the city's fall to Ukrainian forces “is imminent," unless Russia can ward off the collapse with speedy reinforcements, which appeared “highly unlikely.” Ukraine is also keeping close watch of its Russia-allied neighbor to the north, Belarus, which the Kremlin used as a staging ground for its ultimately defeated initial attempt to Kyiv in the opening stage of the invasion. The ongoing development of airfields, barracks and warehouses at two Belorussian military bases suggests that Russia may again try to use Belarus as a launch pad to open another front in the war, said Oleksii Hromov, a senior commander in the Ukrainian armed forces’ General Staff Heightening the tensions are Russia’s partial military mobilization and allegations of sabotage of two Russian pipelines on the Baltic Sea floor that were designed to feed natural gas to Europe.