Russian shelling leaves 10 Ukrainian civilians dead, 20 injured, Zelenskyy says
A new barrage of Russian shelling killed at least 10 Ukrainian civilians and wounded 20 others in a day, Ukraine’s president’s office said on Friday.
Regional officials said towns and villages in the east and south that are within reach of Russian artillery were hardest hit. Six people were killed in the Donetsk region, two in Kherson and two in the Kharkiv region. The day before, missiles and self-propelled drones fired by the Russian military struck deep into Ukrainian territory, killing at least 11 people.
The bombing followed the announcement by the United States and Germany of plans to ship powerful tanks to help defend Ukraine. Other Western countries said they would also share modern tanks from their stockpiles.
Moscow took a strong stand at the move and accused the West of entering a new level of confrontation with Russia.
Ukraine sounds nationwide alarm amid Russian drone attacks; western tank training to start
A destroyed Russian tank is displayed on the first anniversary of the war between Russia and Ukraine in Kyiv, Ukraine, on January 26, 2023.
(Danilo Antoniuc/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Pavlo Kirilenko of the Donetsk government said Russian forces used heavy phosphorus shelling on the village of Zhvanivka, about 20 kilometers north of Bakhmut, which has become the center of a fierce standoff in recent months. Kirilenko said the shelling also damaged apartment buildings and two schools in the nearby town of Vuhledar.
Serhiy Haidai, governor of the neighboring Luhansk region, said Ukrainian shelling hit two Russian positions in the captured towns of Kremina and Rubizne, killing and wounding “dozens” of Russian soldiers. His claim could not be independently verified.
Further south, Russian troops began shelling the Russian-held Zaporizhia nuclear power plant in the city of Nikopol across the Dnieper River, damaging apartment buildings, gas pipelines, power lines and a bakery, officials said.
Separately on Friday, Russian officials took new steps in their months-long and widely criticized effort to graft four Ukrainian provinces onto Russia’s already vast territory. He said that the illegally captured provinces would switch from the time zone covering Kyiv to Moscow.
Russia’s Ministry of Industry and Trade said the switch to Ukraine’s southern and eastern regions, which Russia declared four months ago as part of its territory – Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia and Kherson – would happen “in the near future”. The move is touted by the ministry as a “gradual synchronization” of Russian law following the “admission of the four subjects”.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s highly organized declaration of illegal occupation drew widespread international condemnation and the fact that Russia did not fully control its occupied territories. Russia claims to control almost all of Luhansk and about half of Donetsk.
Less than 1-1/2 months after the annexation, Russia lost control of the city of Kherson and large surrounding areas after Ukraine retaliated. Kherson was the only regional capital Russia had captured since launching its offensive on 24 February, and its loss dealt a heavy blow to the Kremlin.
The planned Western deployment of modern tanks to Ukraine remained on the minds of many on Friday.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told Canada’s CTV that his country was prepared to send 60 modern tanks – half of them PT-91 models, modernized versions of the Soviet-era T-72M1, which were in service in Poland from 1994 to 2001. were created as He said the deliveries would come on top of Poland’s plan to send 14 Leopard 2s after Berlin approved other allies to send German-made tanks to Ukraine.
Russia responds to delivery of tanks to Ukraine, Germany to us: ‘Direct involvement in conflict’
People gather at a subway station being used as a bomb shelter during a rocket attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Jan. 26, 2023.
(AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
On Friday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that the supply of Western tanks to Ukraine would not change the situation in Kyiv’s favor, but would “bring the countries of the West to a new level of confrontation with our country and our people. “
The German government insisted on Friday that it did not see itself in direct conflict with Russia, after Moscow seized on comments by Germany’s top diplomat this week that suggested otherwise.
During a debate Tuesday with lawmakers at the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe, Foreign Minister Annelena Bierbock said it was important for European countries to avoid a “blame game” when it comes to discussing support for Ukraine “because We are fighting a war against Russia and not against each other.”
Asked about those comments, German government spokeswoman Christiane Hoffmann referred to a line set by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and told reporters in Berlin on Friday that “the chancellor has always stressed that NATO and Germany are working against Russia.” Ukraine is not a party to this war of aggression.”
“We support Ukraine, but we are not party to the war,” she said.
In other developments:
— German officials said this week the country was targeted by a series of cyberattacks of apparently Russian origin following a decision to supply modern tanks to Ukraine. An interior ministry spokesman said so-called denial of service attacks, in which websites or entire networks are bombarded with requests in an attempt to make them inaccessible, were observed on Wednesday and Thursday, and were “largely fought or There were no serious effects.”
– Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat said Russia used its latest hypersonic Kinzhal missiles on Thursday to attack energy facilities in the Kyiv and Zaporizhia regions. He said Ukraine lacked defenses against Kinzhal, adding that Russia has few such missiles and mostly uses them against priority targets.
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A woman walks past a residential building destroyed by a Russian missile strike in the city of Glavkha, Kyiv region, Ukraine, January 27, 2023.
(Photo by Oleksiy Chumachenko / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Ihnat said in televised remarks that Russia also used Kh-55 missiles – air-launched missiles designed to carry nuclear warheads – as dummies to distract Ukraine’s air defences. with warheads.
– Russian state-run media says the state communications watchdog has restricted access to CIA and FBI websites for allegedly spreading “material containing false socially significant information” and “discrediting” Russia’s armed forces. Have given. The Russian government has made it illegal to defame its soldiers or spread “false information” about the military.
