Seven killed by Russian missiles in ‘extremely cruel’ attack
AT least seven civilians were killed when Russian missiles hit Ukraine’s second-largest city in the north-east of the country, officials said.
The attack comes as Kyiv’s army labours to hold off an intense crossborder offensive by the Kremlin’s larger and better-equipped forces.
At least 16 people were injured as S-300 missiles struck the city of Kharkiv, said Regional Governor Oleh Syniehubov. The sound of 15 explosions reverberated around the city of some one million people.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the attack “extremely cruel” and again expressed frustration at not getting more air defence systems from western partners to prevent the barrages after more than two years of war.
Kharkiv lies about 12 miles (20km) from the Russian border.
Moscow’s troops have in recent weeks captured villages in the area as part of a broad push, and analysts say they may be trying to get within artillery range of the city.
With Ukraine short of air defences, though more western military support that recently started trickling in, its army has been pushed back in places while Russia has pounded its power grid and civilian areas. Kyiv endured further power outages yesterday.
Mr Zelenskyy said the main hot spots in recent fighting had been Kharkiv and the neighbouring Donetsk region where, in February, Ukraine’s defenders withdrew from the stronghold of Avdiivka.
For the Kremlin, taking control of all of Donetsk is a priority. At the same time, and in a bid to stretch Ukraine’s depleted forces, Russian troops have made incursions in the northern Sumy region.
Nearly 1,500 people, including 200 children, have been evacuated from the towns of Bilopillia and Vorozhba in the region.
“The main focus [of the fighting] is on the entire border area,” Mr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address on Wednesday.
Ukraine has also trained its sights on Russian regions across the border. Russia’s defence ministry said yesterday that 35 Ukrainian rockets and three drones were shot down over the Belgorod region.
Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said one drone had struck a house and exploded after being shot down, killing a woman.
Meanwhile, a deputy chief of the Russian general staff has been arrested on charges of bribery. The arrest of Lieutenant General Vadim Shamarin is the latest in a series of bribery arrests of high-ranking military officials and follows the arrest this week of Major General Ivan Popov, a former top commander in Russia’s war in Ukraine.
In April, Deputy Defence
Minister Timur Ivanov was arrested on bribery charges.
Mr Ivanov was a close associate of Sergei Shoigu, who Russian President Vladimir Putin dismissed as defence minister soon after Mr Putin’s inauguration to a new term in May.
Mr Shoigu had been widely blamed for Russia’s failure to capture Kyiv early in the Ukraine fighting.
Elsewhere, Norway has said it will further tighten its restrictions on the entry of people from Russia, stressing that people with tourist visas issued before regulations were tightened in 2022, or issued by another European country, would be barred from entering Norway as of next week.
Justice Minister Emilie Enger Mehl said the tightening was a response to “Russia’s illegal war of aggression against Ukraine”.
Norway has a 123-mile (198km) border with Russia in the Arctic.
Aftenposten, a Norwegian daily, said last week the country’s security agency, PST, was worried that Russians involved in intelligence gatherings were entering at the sole border crossing at Storskog.
Inger Haugland, head of counterespionage for PST, said that “Russia now sees itself benefitting from carrying out sabotage in European countries in order to weaken Ukrainian defence capabilities”.
On Wednesday, PST said “it appears” that the threat of sabotage has increased against Norwegian companies producing weaponry that goes to Ukraine.