KYIV: The head of the United Nations says Ukraine has become “an epicentre of unbearable heartache and pain” – a description underscored a short time later by the first Russian strike on the capital since Moscow’s forces retreated weeks ago.
Russia pounded targets all over Ukraine on Thursday, including the attack on Kyiv that struck a residential high-rise and another building and wounded 10 people, including at least one who lost a leg, according to Ukraine’s emergency services.
The bombardment came barely an hour after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy held a news conference with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who toured some of the destruction in and around Kyiv and condemned the attacks on civilians.
Meanwhile, explosions were reported across the country, in Polonne in the west, Chernihiv near the border with Belarus, and Fastiv, a large railway hub southwest of the capital.
The mayor of Odesa, in southern Ukraine, said rockets were intercepted by air defences.
Ukrainian authorities also reported intense Russian fire in the Donbas – the eastern industrial heartland that the Kremlin says is its main objective – and near Kharkiv, a northeastern city outside the Donbas that is seen as key to the offensive.
In the ruined southern port city of Mariupol, Ukrainian fighters holed up in the steel plant that represents the last pocket of resistance said concentrated bombing killed and wounded more people.
In Zaporizhzhia, a crucial way station for tens of thousands of Ukrainians fleeing Mariupol, an 11-year-old boy was among at least three people wounded in a rocket attack that authorities said was the first to hit a residential area in the southern city since the war began.
Shards of glass cut the boy’s leg to the bone.
Vadym Vodostoyev, the boy’s father, said: “It just takes one second and you’re left with nothing.”
In Lyman town near Slovyansk, where Russian forces are trying to advance as part of their Donbas push, another tragedy unfolded on Monday when shelling rained on Tatiana Maksagory’s home.
“There was such a blast and then smoke; you couldn’t hear anything,” she said, crying outside a hospital with a wound in her neck. “You couldn’t see anything in front of your eyes, and then I see that my grandson is lying on the ground.”
Maksagory’s 14-year-old grandson, Igor, was declared dead after emergency services drove him to the hospital. Her daughter was in serious condition and her son-in-law was also killed.
The UK government said yesterday it was deploying about 8,000 troops for exercises across eastern Europe in a show of strength.
The months-long drills in countries stretching from Finland to North Macedonia also involve allies including France and the United States, defence officials said in a statement.
Britain is deploying 72 Challenger 2 tanks and 120 armoured fighting vehicles along with artillery guns, helicopters and drones for the exercises, some of which are already underway.
“The security of Europe has never been more important,” Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said, calling it “one of the largest shared deployments since the Cold War”. — Agencies