Russia said on Saturday it had launched Kinjal hypersonic missiles to destroy an arms depot in the western Ukrainian city of Ivano-Frankivsk. This would have been the first time the Russians have used such weapons since the start of the war in Eastern Europe, according to the Interfax news agency.
Fast weapons that can evade detection by missile defense systems, Kinjal missiles, according to the Russian military, can hit targets at distances of more than 2,000 km.
Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said that the warehouse hit on Friday (18) housed Ukrainian missiles, information that could not be independently confirmed. He also alleged that Russian forces destroyed Ukrainian military radios and reconnaissance centers near the port city of Odessa using Bastion coastal missile systems.
Hours later, a spokesman for the Armed Forces of Ukraine confirmed the attack on the Ivano-Frankivsk depot. Yuri Ignat said the type of missile had not yet been determined, but that the ammunition stored in the building had detonated, with damage and destruction at the scene.
On the 24th day of the war, the city of Mariupol, a strategic area for the construction of a bridge linking the Crimean peninsula, annexed by Russia, to the Donbass region, where two self-proclaimed separatist republics are located, witnessed the intensification of the attacks.
The Russian Defense Ministry alleges that its troops, with support from eastern separatists, have tightened the siege and are already present in the center of the city of 400,000 people. Ukrainian officials, meanwhile, say shelling in the region has hampered the search for survivors and describe Mariupol as a sensitive region.
The local government estimates that 40,000 people have left the city in the last five days and that another 20,000 are waiting to be evacuated, adding to the more than 6.4 million internally displaced people.
It also claims that 2,500 people have died in the city since the beginning of the Russian invasion, information that is difficult to confirm independently, especially since international organizations such as the United Nations and the Red Cross have little or no access to the site. So far, the UN has confirmed the death of 816 civilians across Ukraine, although it recognizes that this is an underreported figure.
Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk said the country plans to open 10 humanitarian corridors for civilian evacuation on Saturday. One of them would be precisely in Mariupol, although previous efforts have been frustrated as the temporary ceasefire, agreed in negotiations, was not respected.
To the American network BBC, a Ukrainian parliamentarian whose parents are in Mariupol described the scene as “medieval”. “People are without food and without water,” said Dmitro Gurin. “And several days ago, tanks started shooting at residential buildings. Everyone is sitting in their apartments and basements wondering if they’re going to die in the next hour.”
The intensification of attacks, among other things, has hampered search efforts in a city theater bombed on Wednesday (16). Authorities say hundreds of people were sheltered there. At least 130 were reportedly rescued on Friday, and about 1,300 were still inside the building, likely in an air raid shelter.
Ukraine had said on Friday that it had lost access to the Sea of ​​Azov, where Mariupol is located, “temporarily”.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), an American think tank, said in its latest report, however, that Russian forces continue to make territorial gains only around the port city and not in the center of the city. region, largely due to logistical and troop supply problems.
There were also new bombings in Zaporijia, in the southern part of the country, where at least nine people were killed and 17 were injured, Deputy Mayor Anatoli Kurtiev said. The government has decreed a curfew in the region for at least 38 hours.
Meanwhile, diplomatic negotiations continue with an uncertain outcome. The last week was marked by optimistic statements, especially from Moscow, about a possible agreement.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his latest speech that “the time has come to talk”, and the Russian Foreign Ministry was signaling that a deal on Ukrainian neutrality, demanded by Russian leader Vladimir Putin, could be in its wake.
So far, however, no ceasefire has been formalized. Zelensky’s main adviser, Mihailo Podoliak, once again criticized, in a social network, the lack of willingness of NATO (Western military alliance) to establish a no-fly zone in Ukraine, a demand that the local government reinforced in the last week. “These statements encourage Russia to massacre Ukraine,” he said.
