Russia unleashes a country-wide missile barrage on Ukraine

By Illia Novikov and Dasha Litvinova | Related Press

KYIV, Ukraine — Russian forces unleashed missiles throughout Ukraine early on Tuesday, killing and wounding civilians and damaging infrastructure. The barrage got here simply hours earlier than high Russian navy officers and their counterparts from allied international locations in Asia, the Center East and Africa gathered outdoors Moscow for a safety convention.

Missiles struck cities from the east to west of Ukraine, together with far behind entrance strains the place Ukraine is combating deeply entrenched Russian forces to regain territory occupied by Moscow virtually 18 months into the warfare.

Russia has constructed closely fortified defenses alongside the greater than 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) entrance line the place Ukraine has solely made incremental features since launching a counteroffensive in early June.

“Deliberate large-scale assaults on civilians. Solely for the sake of killing and psychological strain,” presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak stated on X, previously generally known as Twitter, commenting on the most recent Russian assaults.

Six Russian-launched missiles hit the western area of Lviv, wounding 19 folks, together with a 10-year-old baby, Lviv Gov. Maksym Kozytskyi stated. In keeping with metropolis authorities, the facility grid and practically 120 residential buildings had been broken.

The Swedish bearings maker SKF confirmed three staff had been killed in a single day after its manufacturing facility in Lutsk, north of Lviv, was hit by a missile strike. One particular person was killed within the east of Ukraine in Kramatorsk after Russian forces hit a meals warehouse. In central Ukraine, a strike left elements of town of Smila with out entry to water and in addition broken a medical facility.

The barrage got here a day after Russian forces unleashed a wave of missile and drone strikes on Odesa within the nation’s southwest.

Russian forces have pummeled Odesa, hitting services that transport Ukraine’s essential grain exports and in addition wrecking cherished Ukrainian historic websites. The repeated assaults on Odesa observe Moscow’s resolution to interrupt off a landmark settlement that had allowed grain to circulation from Ukraine to international locations in Africa, the Center East and Asia and assist scale back the specter of starvation.

In Russia on Tuesday, Vladimir Putin addressed a safety convention outdoors Moscow in a pre-recorded video assertion, accusing the West of fueling the battle “by pumping billions of {dollars}” into Kyiv and “supplying it with tools, weapons, ammunition, sending their navy advisers and mercenaries.”