Kyiv: Russian forces bombarded Ukraine with missiles and ammunition-carrying drones on Tuesday after widespread strikes killed at least 19 people in what the UN human rights office described as an attack “ particularly shocking” which could constitute war crimes.
Air raid warnings extended across the country for a second consecutive morning. Ukrainian officials have advised residents to conserve energy and stock up on water after strikes in the capital and 12 other regions the day before caused widespread power outages and broke through the relative calm that had returned to Kyiv and many other cities far from the front lines of war.
“It brings anger, not fear,” Kyiv resident Volodymyr Vasylenko, 67, said as teams worked to restore traffic lights and clear debris from city streets. . “We are already used to this. And we will continue to fight.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed the leaders of the G7 industrial powers on Tuesday by videoconference. After the meeting, the G-7 leaders said their countries “will stand firmly with Ukraine for as long as it takes.”
Russia has launched widespread attacks in retaliation for a weekend explosion that damaged a bridge connecting the country to the Crimean peninsula, which Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014. Russian President Vladimir Putin has claimed that the Ukrainian special services had orchestrated Saturday’s attack on the Kerch bridge.
Russia concentrated most of its firepower during the 7.5-month war in eastern and southern Ukraine, and Ukrainian officials said the previous day’s diffuse strikes on power plants and civilian areas had no “practical military sense”.
However, Putin’s supporters have for weeks urged the Kremlin to take more drastic action in Ukraine and actively criticized the Russian military for a series of embarrassing battlefield setbacks. Pro-Kremlin pundits hailed Monday’s attack as an appropriate and long-awaited response to Kyiv’s recently successful counteroffensives, and many argued that Moscow should maintain intensity in order to win the war .
Tuesday’s bombardment hit both power plants and civilian areas, as did Monday’s attacks. One person was killed when 12 missiles slammed into public facilities in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia, starting a massive fire, the state emergency service said. A local official said the missiles hit a school, residential buildings and medical facilities.
Energy facilities in the western regions of Lviv and Vinnitsya were also affected. Although officials said Ukrainian forces shot down an oncoming Russian missile before it reached Kyiv, the capital region has seen continued power cuts following deadly strikes the day before.
The governor of the Mykolaiv region, Vitaly Kimurged residents to stay in bomb shelters because “there are still enough missiles in the air”.
The state emergency service said 19 people died and 105 people were injured in Monday’s strikes. At least five of the victims were in Kyiv, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. More than 300 towns and villages lost power, from the capital to Lviv on the border with Poland.
Apart from the usual sirens, a new type of audible alarm that sounds automatically from mobile phones shook Kyiv residents early on Tuesday. A text message warning of the possibility of missile strikes accompanied the caustic sounding alert.
A spokesperson for the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said on Tuesday that strikes against “civilian objects”, including infrastructure such as power plants, could qualify as a war crime.
“Damage to major power stations and power lines ahead of next winter raises new concerns for the protection of civilians and in particular the impact on vulnerable populations,” Ravina Shamdasani told reporters during a briefing by the UN in Geneva. “Attacks targeting civilians and objects indispensable to the survival of civilians are prohibited by international humanitarian law.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was due to address the leaders of the G7 industrial powers on Tuesday by videoconference. Germany, which currently chairs the G-7, announced the meeting after Monday’s missile strikes.
As Ukrainian forces grew bolder after a series of counteroffensive successes, a cornered Kremlin has intensified Cold War-era rhetoric over the past month and stoked fears it could expand the war and use nuclear weapons in Ukraine.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov addressed the issue on Tuesday, saying Moscow would only resort to it if the Russian state faced imminent destruction. Speaking on state television, he accused the West of encouraging false speculation about the Kremlin’s intentions.
Russia’s nuclear doctrine contemplates “exclusively retaliatory measures aimed at preventing the destruction of the Russian Federation as a result of direct nuclear strikes or the use of other weapons that threaten the very existence of the Russian state “, Lavrov said.
In Brussels, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the 30-nation military alliance would hold long-planned exercises next week to test the readiness of its nuclear capabilities.
The exercise, dubbed “Steadfast Noon”, takes place every year. These are fighter planes capable of carrying nuclear warheads but not real bombs. Conventional jets and surveillance and refueling aircraft regularly participate.
When asked if now was not the right time for such an exercise, Stoltenberg replied: “It would send a very bad signal now, if we suddenly canceled a long-planned routine exercise because of the war in Ukraine.”
Stoltenberg said Russian President Vladimir Putin’s nuclear rhetoric on the war in Ukraine is “irresponsible”, and he said “Russia knows that a nuclear war can never be won and must never be fought”.
NATO as an organization has no nuclear weapons. They remain under the control of three member countries – the United States, the United Kingdom and France.
Meanwhile, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov warned on Tuesday that Western military assistance to Kyiv, including training Ukrainian soldiers in NATO countries and providing timely satellite data real to Ukraine to target Russian forces, has “increasingly embroiled Western nations in the conflict over the part of the Kyiv regime.”
Echoing Ryabkov, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said continued US arms deliveries to Ukraine would prolong the fighting and inflict more damage on the country.
Asked on a conference call with reporters about Washington’s intention to supply Ukraine with advanced air defense systems, Peskov said the move “would only prolong the conflict and make it more painful” for the country. Ukraine without modifying Russian objectives.
As Russian forces shelled three neighborhoods around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant overnight, Ukraine’s nuclear operator said Russian forces abducted the plant’s deputy director of human resources, Valeriy Martyniuk.
The Russians previously arrested the plant’s general manager, Ihor Murashow, and released him following pressure from the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Mariano Grossi.
Air raid warnings extended across the country for a second consecutive morning. Ukrainian officials have advised residents to conserve energy and stock up on water after strikes in the capital and 12 other regions the day before caused widespread power outages and broke through the relative calm that had returned to Kyiv and many other cities far from the front lines of war.
“It brings anger, not fear,” Kyiv resident Volodymyr Vasylenko, 67, said as teams worked to restore traffic lights and clear debris from city streets. . “We are already used to this. And we will continue to fight.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed the leaders of the G7 industrial powers on Tuesday by videoconference. After the meeting, the G-7 leaders said their countries “will stand firmly with Ukraine for as long as it takes.”
Russia has launched widespread attacks in retaliation for a weekend explosion that damaged a bridge connecting the country to the Crimean peninsula, which Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014. Russian President Vladimir Putin has claimed that the Ukrainian special services had orchestrated Saturday’s attack on the Kerch bridge.
Russia concentrated most of its firepower during the 7.5-month war in eastern and southern Ukraine, and Ukrainian officials said the previous day’s diffuse strikes on power plants and civilian areas had no “practical military sense”.
However, Putin’s supporters have for weeks urged the Kremlin to take more drastic action in Ukraine and actively criticized the Russian military for a series of embarrassing battlefield setbacks. Pro-Kremlin pundits hailed Monday’s attack as an appropriate and long-awaited response to Kyiv’s recently successful counteroffensives, and many argued that Moscow should maintain intensity in order to win the war .
Tuesday’s bombardment hit both power plants and civilian areas, as did Monday’s attacks. One person was killed when 12 missiles slammed into public facilities in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia, starting a massive fire, the state emergency service said. A local official said the missiles hit a school, residential buildings and medical facilities.
Energy facilities in the western regions of Lviv and Vinnitsya were also affected. Although officials said Ukrainian forces shot down an oncoming Russian missile before it reached Kyiv, the capital region has seen continued power cuts following deadly strikes the day before.
The governor of the Mykolaiv region, Vitaly Kimurged residents to stay in bomb shelters because “there are still enough missiles in the air”.
The state emergency service said 19 people died and 105 people were injured in Monday’s strikes. At least five of the victims were in Kyiv, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. More than 300 towns and villages lost power, from the capital to Lviv on the border with Poland.
Apart from the usual sirens, a new type of audible alarm that sounds automatically from mobile phones shook Kyiv residents early on Tuesday. A text message warning of the possibility of missile strikes accompanied the caustic sounding alert.
A spokesperson for the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said on Tuesday that strikes against “civilian objects”, including infrastructure such as power plants, could qualify as a war crime.
“Damage to major power stations and power lines ahead of next winter raises new concerns for the protection of civilians and in particular the impact on vulnerable populations,” Ravina Shamdasani told reporters during a briefing by the UN in Geneva. “Attacks targeting civilians and objects indispensable to the survival of civilians are prohibited by international humanitarian law.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was due to address the leaders of the G7 industrial powers on Tuesday by videoconference. Germany, which currently chairs the G-7, announced the meeting after Monday’s missile strikes.
As Ukrainian forces grew bolder after a series of counteroffensive successes, a cornered Kremlin has intensified Cold War-era rhetoric over the past month and stoked fears it could expand the war and use nuclear weapons in Ukraine.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov addressed the issue on Tuesday, saying Moscow would only resort to it if the Russian state faced imminent destruction. Speaking on state television, he accused the West of encouraging false speculation about the Kremlin’s intentions.
Russia’s nuclear doctrine contemplates “exclusively retaliatory measures aimed at preventing the destruction of the Russian Federation as a result of direct nuclear strikes or the use of other weapons that threaten the very existence of the Russian state “, Lavrov said.
In Brussels, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the 30-nation military alliance would hold long-planned exercises next week to test the readiness of its nuclear capabilities.
The exercise, dubbed “Steadfast Noon”, takes place every year. These are fighter planes capable of carrying nuclear warheads but not real bombs. Conventional jets and surveillance and refueling aircraft regularly participate.
When asked if now was not the right time for such an exercise, Stoltenberg replied: “It would send a very bad signal now, if we suddenly canceled a long-planned routine exercise because of the war in Ukraine.”
Stoltenberg said Russian President Vladimir Putin’s nuclear rhetoric on the war in Ukraine is “irresponsible”, and he said “Russia knows that a nuclear war can never be won and must never be fought”.
NATO as an organization has no nuclear weapons. They remain under the control of three member countries – the United States, the United Kingdom and France.
Meanwhile, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov warned on Tuesday that Western military assistance to Kyiv, including training Ukrainian soldiers in NATO countries and providing timely satellite data real to Ukraine to target Russian forces, has “increasingly embroiled Western nations in the conflict over the part of the Kyiv regime.”
Echoing Ryabkov, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said continued US arms deliveries to Ukraine would prolong the fighting and inflict more damage on the country.
Asked on a conference call with reporters about Washington’s intention to supply Ukraine with advanced air defense systems, Peskov said the move “would only prolong the conflict and make it more painful” for the country. Ukraine without modifying Russian objectives.
As Russian forces shelled three neighborhoods around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant overnight, Ukraine’s nuclear operator said Russian forces abducted the plant’s deputy director of human resources, Valeriy Martyniuk.
The Russians previously arrested the plant’s general manager, Ihor Murashow, and released him following pressure from the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Mariano Grossi.
