Russian missiles fired from the Caspian Sea hit the city of Kiev on Sunday in what is the first attack on the Ukrainian capital in about a month, local officials said.
The attack reportedly hit a train car repair facility, and at least one person was injured, but no deaths were reported, Mayor Vitali Klitchko said. The Russian Defense Ministry, meanwhile, alleges that its missiles destroyed T-72 tanks and armored vehicles supplied to the country by its Eastern European neighbors.
Ukrainian railway director Oleksandr Kamichin confirmed that four missiles hit the Darnitsia railcar repair facility in the eastern part of the capital, but denied that there was any military equipment at the site. “The Russian target is the economy and the civilian population,” he said.
Leonid, 63, a resident who works at one of the affected sites and spoke to the AFP news agency, said he had witnessed three or four explosions and that there was no military material stored there. “Still, they’ve been bombing anywhere,” he said.
The episode led the government to reiterate its call for sanctions. Mikhailo Podoliak, a Ukrainian negotiator and adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky, said the missile attacks on Kiev had only one goal: “to kill as many Ukrainians as possible.”
And he again aimed indirect criticism at the newly re-elected president of France, Emmanuel Macron. “While some urge us not to humiliate the Russians, the Kremlin resorts to new attacks,” he said. He was referring to recent statements by Macron urging the West not to humiliate Moscow and thus not to exhaust the dialogue.
The Frenchman, who until the end of the month is in the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union (EU), is under pressure to visit Kiev.
After the new bombing in the capital, an interview with Vladimir Putin was released in which the Russian president threatens Kiev with new attacks. The Kremlin leader said that if Ukraine receives more long-range missiles from the West, Moscow “will use its weapons to attack targets that have not been attacked so far.”
Putin did not mention the targets Russia planned to bomb, but added that Western arms supplies to Ukraine were designed to prolong the conflict in the region – last week, US President Joe Biden confirmed the deployment of systems that were identified in the Pentagon as being the M142 Himars (High Mobility Rocket Artillery System), medium-range missile launchers, for the Ukrainians.
Another point of attention on Ukrainian territory is Severodonetsk, in the Donbass, the eastern part where the Russians have concentrated attacks over the last few weeks. The city represents the last major pocket of Ukrainian control in the Lugansk region, an ethnically Russian-majority area. After weeks of advance from Moscow, successes of the Ukrainian resistance in the area began to be reported.
Governor Serhii Haidai reiterated on Sunday that Kiev troops had regained parts of the city, although the eastern half remains under Russian control. “The Russians controlled about 70% of the city, but during the last few days they were repulsed; now Severodonetsk is split in two,” he wrote on a messaging app.
The industrial city is the focus of Russians in Donbass. If taken, neighboring Lisitchansk would be the last city the Russians would need to capture to gain full control of Lugansk. In neighboring Donetsk province, strong explosions were reported, with at least one person dead in the city of Kramatorsk.
With diplomatic talks stagnant between the two countries, Pope Francis has again called on Moscow and Kiev to carry out “real negotiations” in the face of the “increasingly dangerous escalation of the conflict”. The pontiff, on Saturday (4), had already signaled his desire to go to Ukraine. Without further details, he said that next week he will receive representatives of the Zelensky government to discuss the matter.
“In the midst of destruction and death, and while clashes grow, fueling an increasingly dangerous escalation, I renew my call to the leaders of nations [Rússia e Ucrânia]: please do not lead humanity to destruction,” Francis asked before the approximately 25,000 faithful gathered in St Peter’s Square at the Vatican.
