Russia has escalated its attacks on Ukraine in recent days, launching several missile barrages on the capital Kyiv, and hitting energy infrastructure across the country in apparent retaliation for recent Ukrainian aerial attacks on the Russian border region of Belgorod. Such sporadic attacks, however, have been common throughout the war.
On day 763 of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the situation in terms of fighting was as follows:
At least one person was killed and 19 injured after Russia attacked Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second biggest city, with what officials said could have been a new type of guided bomb. The airstrikes caused widespread damage, hitting several residential buildings and damaging the city’s institute for emergency surgery.
Other parts of the country also came under Russian attack, with a further three deaths reported from shelling and drone attacks in the south and northeast, among them a 12-year-old boy. A ballistic missile strike on the coastal territory of Mykolaiv injured eight people.
Ukraine’s air force chief Mykola Oleshchuk said Russia launched 13 Iranian-designed Shahed drones, 10 of which were brought down in Kharkiv, Sumy and Kyiv regions.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited troops in the northeastern Sumy region bordering Russia, where he met soldiers recovering from injuries and visited newly built defense lines, including trenches, dugouts, firing and command and observation posts.
He urged Ukraine’s allies to speed up deliveries of warplanes and air defense systems following Wednesday’s Russian attacks. “Bolstering Ukraine’s air defense and expediting the delivery of F-16s to Ukraine are vital tasks,” he said in a statement on social media.
Yet Russian President Vladimir Putin this week told a group of military pilots that plans by Ukraine’s allies to send Kyiv F-16 fighter jets would not alter the situation on the battlefield. He said the F-16s would be “legitimate targets,” wherever they might be.
Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said Poland would double its contribution to a Czech-led plan to buy ammunition for Ukraine, though he declined to say how much Poland was contributing.
FSB chief, citing no proof, blames Ukraine and US for Moscow terror attack
Russia’s intelligence chief on Tuesday directly blamed Ukraine for orchestrating the assault on the Crocus City Hall concert venue with Western help, alleging, without evidence, that Kyiv “trained militants in the Middle East.”
The accusation by Alexander Bortnikov, the head of Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, seemed intended to deflect attention from his agency’s failure to prevent the attack, in which at least 139 people were killed, and to fan anti-Ukrainian rhetoric even as officials presented an increasingly convoluted narrative of what transpired Friday night.
“We think the act was prepared by the radical Islamists, but of course, the Western special services aided them,” Bortnikov told state media reporters, singling out the United States and Britain. “And the special services of Ukraine have a direct relation to this.”
Ukraine has strongly denied having any involvement in the attack. On March 7, the United States issued a warning of a potential terrorist attack in Russia, urging Americans there to avoid mass gatherings, based in part on intelligence reporting about the possible activity inside Russia of the Islamic State-Khorasan (ISIS-K), the Afghanistan and Pakistan arm of the militant group. Russian President Vladimir Putin, speaking to the FSB board a week ago, dismissed that warning as an attempt by the West to “destabilize Russia.”
The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack, and Russia has charged four suspects, all citizens of Tajikistan, with carrying out the rampage. Bortnikov on Tuesday confirmed that the United States had passed on information about a potential attack but said it was “of a general nature.”
“We responded to this information and took appropriate measures to prevent such things,” Bortnikov said. “Unfortunately, the actions we carried out in relation to specific groups and specific individuals — this information was not confirmed at that time,” he added. He did not provide any details about what groups the FSB had targeted.
After Russia’s military intervened in Syria beginning in 2015 to support Bashar al-Assad against Islamist and opposition militias, including the Islamic State, the FSB focused on the threat Islamist extremists posed to Russia.
Ukrainian navy says a third of Russian warships in the Black Sea have been destroyed or disabled
Ukraine has sunk or disabled a third of all Russian warships in the Black Sea in just over two years of war, the navy spokesman said Tuesday, a heavy blow to Moscow’s military capability.
Ukraine’s Navy spokesman Dmytro Pletenchuk told The Associated Press that the latest strike on Saturday night hit the Russian amphibious landing ship Kostiantyn Olshansky that was resting in dock in Sevastopol in Russia-occupied Crimea. The ship was part of the Ukrainian navy before Russia captured it while annexing the Black Sea peninsula in 2014.
Pletenchuk previously announced that two other landing ships of the same type, Azov and Yamal, were also damaged in Saturday’s strike along with the Ivan Khurs intelligence ship.
He told the AP that the weekend attack, which was launched with Ukraine-built Neptune missiles, also hit Sevastopol port facilities and an oil depot.
Russian authorities reported a massive Ukrainian attack on Sevastopol over the weekend but didn’t acknowledge any damage to the fleet.
Sources: AL Jazeera, The Washington Post, AP.
Compiled by Ana Dumbadze
