Russian warplanes hit Kyiv with missiles, says Ukraine

KYIV/MOSCOW (REUTERS,AFP) - Russian Tu-95 strategic bombers launched missiles at Kyiv from the Caspian Sea early on Sunday (June 5) and two of the Ukrainian capital’s eastern districts were rocked by explosions, Ukraine’s air force and the city’s mayor said.

The attack came a day after officials said Ukranian troops had recaptured a swathe of the battlefield city of Sievierodonetsk in a counter-offensive against Russia.

At least one person was hospitalised though no deaths were immediately reported, Mayor Vitaly Klitschko said.

The attack targeted railway infrastructure in Kyiv, said Mr Serhiy Leshchenko, an aide to President Volodomyr Zelenskiy’s chief of staff.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said it had fired rockets at Kyiv from long distance and destroyed T-72 tanks and armoured vehicles that had been supplied to Ukraine by eastern European countries and were held in a railway carriage repair building.

Russian strikes destroyed tanks and other armoured vehicles on the outskirts of Kyiv that had been provided to Ukraine by European countries, Russia’s defence ministry said on Sunday.

“High-precision, long-range missiles fired by the Russian Aerospace Forces on the outskirts of Kyiv destroyed T-72 tanks supplied by eastern European countries and other armoured vehicles that were in hangars,” Russian defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said.

Ukrainian air defences destroyed one cruise missile at around 6 am local time after identifying incoming missiles, Ukraine’s air force said.

Dark smoke rose into the sky above the Darnytskyi and Dniprovskyi districts where the explosions rang out.

The missiles were the first to hit the capital since late April when a Radio Liberty producer was killed when a Russian missile hit the building she lived in.

“According to preliminary data, the (Russians) launched missiles from Tu-95 aircraft from the Caspian Sea,” the Ukrainian air forces said in a statement.

Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak called on the West to impose more sanctions on Russia to punish it for the strikes and to supply more weapons to Ukraine.

“The Kremlin resorts to new insidious attacks. Today’s missile strikes at Kyiv have only one goal – kill as many as possible,” he wrote.

The mayor of the historic town of Brovary some 20 km from Kyiv’s centre, urged people to remain inside their houses as there had been reports of the smell of soot coming from the smoke.

Despite continuing Russian offensives in Ukraine and the widespread destruction, life in Kyiv has been relatively attack-free in recent weeks, after Moscow turned the focus of its invasion to the east and south.

Air raid sirens regularly disrupt life in Kyiv, but there have been no major strikes on the city in several weeks.

The Darnytskyi district on the left bank of the Dnipro River stretches from the outskirts of Kyiv to the river’s shores while the Dniprovskyi area in the city’s north lies along the river.

Oleksandr Honcharenko, mayor of Kramatorsk in the Donetsk region in the east, reported overnight strikes on the city, resulting in widespread damage but no casualties.

On Saturday, Ukrainian officials said the country’s troops had recaptured a swath of the embattled city of Sievierodonetsk in a counteroffensive against Russia.

The Ukrainian claim on Sievierodonetsk could not be independently verified, and Moscow said its own forces were making gains there. But it was the first time Kyiv has claimed to have launched a big counter-attack in the small industrial city after days of yielding ground.

Sievierodonetsk Mayor Oleksandr Stryuk said street fighting continued during the day on Saturday, with both sides exchanging artillery fire.

“The situation is tense, complicated,” he said on national television, adding that there was a shortage of food, fuel and medicine.

“Our military is doing everything it can to drive the enemy out of the city.”

Russia has concentrated its forces on Sievierodonetsk in recent weeks for one of the biggest ground battles of the war, with Moscow appearing to bet its campaign on capturing one of two eastern provinces it claims on behalf of separatist proxies.

Both sides claim to have inflicted huge casualties in the fighting, a battle that military experts say could determine which side has the momentum for a prolonged war of attrition in the coming months.

In the diplomatic sphere, Kyiv rebuked French President Emmanuel Macron for saying it was important not to “humiliate” Moscow.

“We must not humiliate Russia so that the day when the fighting stops, we can build an exit ramp through diplomatic means,” Mr Macron had told regional newspapers in an interview published on Saturday, adding that he was “convinced that it is France’s role to be a mediating power”.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted in response: “Calls to avoid humiliation of Russia can only humiliate France and every other country that would call for it.

“Because it is Russia that humiliates itself. We all better focus on how to put Russia in its place. This will bring peace and save lives.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky offered a stark message. 

“The terrible consequences of this war can be stopped at any moment... if one person in Moscow simply gives the order,” he said, in an apparent reference to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“And the fact that there is still no such order is obviously a humiliation for the whole world.”

Mr Putin warned the West that Russia would strike new targets if the United States started supplying Ukraine with longer-range missiles, the TASS news agency reported on Sunday.

If such missiles are supplied, “we will strike at those targets which we have not yet been hitting,” he was quoted as saying in an interview Rossiya-1 state television channel.

In a brief excerpt aired on Saturday, he said Russian anti-aircraft forces have shot down dozens of Ukrainian weapons and are “cracking them like nuts”.

Spain is to supply Ukraine with anti-aircraft missiles and Leopard battle tanks in a step up of its military support to the country, according to government sources cited by newspaper El Pais on Sunday.

Spain will also provide essential training to the Ukrainian military in how to use the tanks. It would take place in Latvia, where the Spanish Army has deployed 500 soldiers within the framework of Nato’s Enhanced Advanced Presence operation.

A second phase of training could take place in Spain, according to the sources cited by El Pais.

The paper said Spain’s defence ministry is finalising a delivery to Kyiv of low-level Shorad Aspide anti-aircraft missiles, which the Spanish Army has replaced with a more advanced system.

Spain has so far supplied ammunition, individual protection equipment and light weapons.

Ukraine says it aims to push Russian forces back as far as possible on the battlefield, counting on advanced missile systems pledged in recent days by the United States and Britain to swing the war in its favour.

Asked about Mr Macron’s mediation offer on national television, Zelensky adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said there was “no point in holding negotiations” until Ukraine received all the pledged weapons, strengthened its position and pushed Russian forces “back as far as possible to the borders of Ukraine”.

Moscow has said the Western weapons will pour “fuel on the fire” but will not change the course of what it calls a “special military operation” to disarm Ukraine and rid it of nationalists.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said its troops were forcing the Ukrainians to withdraw across the Siverskyi Donets River to Lysychansk on the opposite bank.

Mr Serhiy Gaidai, governor of Ukraine’s Luhansk province, which includes Sievierodonetsk, said Ukrainian forces previously in control of just 30 per cent of the city had mounted a counter-attack, recapturing another 20 per cent of it.

Mr Gaidai said the Russians were blowing up bridges across the river to prevent Ukraine from bringing in military reinforcements and delivering aid to civilians in Sievierodonetsk.

“The Russian army, as we understand, is throwing all its efforts, all its reserves in that direction,” Mr Gaidai said in a live TV broadcast.

“The Russians were in control of about 70 percent of the city, but have been forced back over the past two days,” he wrote on Telegram, adding that Ukrainian forces had captured eight Russian prisoners.

“The city is divided in two. They are afraid to move freely around the city.”

Tens of thousands are believed to have died, millions have been uprooted from their homes, and the global economy has been disrupted in a war that marked its 100th day on Friday.

Ukraine is one of the world’s leading sources of grain and cooking oil, but those supplies were largely cut off by Russia’s closure of its Black Sea ports, with more than 20 million tonnes of grain stuck in silos.