War in Ukraine: Russia steps up attacks with new missile strikes – National

Ukrainian authorities throughout the nation reported new Russian missile strikes and shelling Saturday that killed not less than 16 extra civilians, deaths that got here after Russia’s prime navy introduced it was stepping up its onslaught towards its neighbor.

The Russian Protection Ministry stated Saturday that Protection Minister Sergei Shoigu gave “directions to additional intensify the actions of models in all operational areas, with a view to exclude the potential of the Kyiv regime launching large rocket and artillery strikes on civilian infrastructure and residents of settlements in Donbas and different areas.”

The brand new Russian assaults hit areas within the north, the east and the south of Ukraine. Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest metropolis, has seen particularly extreme bombardments in current days, with Ukrainian officers and native commanders voicing fears {that a} second full-scale Russian assault on the northern metropolis could also be looming.

No less than three civilians had been killed and three extra had been injured Saturday in a pre-dawn Russian rocket strike on the northern Ukrainian metropolis of Chuhuiv, which is near Kharkiv and solely 120 kilometers (75 miles) from the Russian border, a regional police chief stated.

Serhiy Bolvinov, the deputy head of Kharkiv’s regional police drive, stated the rockets partly destroyed a two-story residence constructing.

“4 Russian rockets, presumably fired from round (the Russian metropolis of) Belgorod at evening, at about 3:30 a.m., hit a residential constructing, a college and administrative buildings,” Bolvinov wrote on Fb.

“The our bodies of three individuals had been discovered underneath the rubble. Three extra had been injured. The victims are civilians,” Bolvinov added.

Within the neighboring Sumy area, one civilian was killed and not less than seven extra had been injured after Russians opened mortar and artillery fireplace on three cities and villages not removed from the Russian border, regional governor Dmytro Zhyvytsky stated Saturday on Telegram.

Within the embattled japanese Donetsk area, seven civilians had been killed and 14 wounded within the final 24 hours in assaults on cities, its governor stated Saturday morning.

Close by, nevertheless, Ukrainian troops repelled a Russian in a single day assault on a strategic japanese freeway, stated Serhiy Haidai, the governor of the Luhansk area. Haidai stated Russia had been trying to seize the primary street hyperlink between the cities of Lysychansk and Bakhmut “for greater than two months.”

“They nonetheless can not management a number of kilometers of this street,” Haidai wrote in a Telegram put up.

Russia’s navy marketing campaign has been specializing in the Donbas, which incorporates the areas of Donetsk and Luhansk, however Russian forces even have been pounding different components of the nation in a relentless push to wrest territory from Ukraine and crush the morale of its leaders, troops and civilians.

In Ukraine’s south, two individuals had been wounded by Russian shelling within the city of Bashtanka, northeast of the Black Sea metropolis of Mykolaiv, in accordance the regional governor, Vitaliy Kim.

Kim stated Mykolaiv itself additionally got here underneath renewed Russian fireplace earlier than daybreak. On Friday, he had posted movies of what he stated was a Russian missile assault on the town’s two largest universities and denounced Russia as “a terrorist state.”

Two individuals had been killed and a lady was hospitalized after a Russian rocket strike on the japanese riverside metropolis of Nikopol, emergency companies stated. Dnipropetrovsk governor Valentyn Reznichenko stated on Telegram {that a} five-story residence block, a college and a vocational faculty constructing had been broken.

On Friday, cruise missiles fired by Russian strategic bombers struck the southeastern Ukrainian metropolis of Dnipro, killing not less than three individuals and wounding 16, Ukrainian officers stated.

In a daily press briefing Saturday, Russian protection officers claimed that strike had destroyed “workshops producing elements for, and repairing, Tochka-U ballistic missiles, in addition to a number of rocket launchers.” Spokesman Igor Konashenkov didn’t reply to Ukrainian allegations that the strike had killed civilians.

The deadliest Russian assault this week hit Thursday, when a Russian missile strike killed not less than 24 individuals _ together with three kids _ and wounded greater than 200 in Vinnytsia, a metropolis southwest of Kyiv, the capital, removed from the entrance strains.

Russia stated the Kalibr cruise missiles hit a “navy facility” that was internet hosting a gathering between Ukrainian air drive command and international weapons suppliers. Ukrainian authorities insisted the positioning had nothing to do with the navy.

Ukraine’s Inside Ministry stated Friday that Russian forces have performed greater than 17,000 strikes on civilian targets throughout the struggle, killing hundreds of fighters and civilians and driving hundreds of thousands from their properties.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has additionally rippled via the world financial system, mountaineering power and meals costs and crimping exports of key Ukrainian and Russian merchandise resembling grain, gasoline and fertilizer.