Russian forces ordered to step up attacks across Ukraine

Russia’s defense minister on Saturday ordered his forces to step up attacks “in all operational sectors” of Ukraine, days after President Vladimir Putin warned that Russia had “not yet started in earnest “his efforts as the war nears its five-month mark.

As many as 150 civilians have died from Russian airstrikes in the past two weeks, the Pentagon has estimated.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has imposed an air alert across the country as Russia steps up its attacks from beyond the front lines. About 70% of Russian strikes targeted non-military infrastructure, a Ukrainian Defense Ministry spokesman said. Since Friday, missiles have struck residential areas in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro, the southern city of Mykolaiv and the eastern towns of Chuhuiv and Nikopol.

National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on Saturday the United States had information that Russian officials had recently visited an airfield in Iran twice to examine drones they were considering acquiring for the war. . The White House released satellite images it said showed “attack-capable” unmanned aerial vehicles in flight as a Russian delegation transport plane was on the airfield. Iran on Friday dismissed accusations that it planned to supply Russia with hundreds of drones as “baseless”.

The missile strikes reported on Saturday in the eastern Ukrainian regions of Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk are the latest in a series of Russian attacks that have triggered an air alert across much of the country.

Rocket attacks on the city of Chuhuiv in the Kharkiv region killed three people – two men in their 60s and a woman in her 70s – Governor Oleh Synehubov said on Telegram. Three other people were hospitalized and a building was destroyed, he said.

In the town of Nikopol, on the banks of the Dnipro River, Dnipropetrovsk Governor Valentyn Reznichenko said more than 50 rockets had pulverized residential areas. The bodies of two people were pulled from the rubble of a house, he said, and a woman was hospitalized.

After Russian airstrikes on shopping malls, apartments and other civilian facilities in Ukraine, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu on Saturday ordered his forces to step up attacks “in all operational sectors” in Ukraine.

The order was issued nine days after Putin warned on July 7 that Russia had not “started in earnest yet” its war against Ukraine.

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, Shoigu has heard reports from commanders of southern and central military groups waging war against Ukraine.

The ministry said Shoigu had given “the order to exclude the possibility of the Kyiv regime launching massive rocket and artillery strikes on civilian infrastructure and residents”.

Russian sea-launched Kalibr missile strikes on Vinnytsia in western Ukraine killed at least 23 people, including three children. Zelenskyy described the Vinnytsia attack as “an open act of terrorism” and called on the international community to designate Russia as a terrorist state.

The Russian Defense Ministry said on Friday that the Vinnytsia missile strike hit a cultural club for military officers, where it said Ukrainian military officials met with representatives of foreign arms suppliers. He provided no evidence. Earlier, state-controlled RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan said the attack was aimed at “Nazis”.

An air alert was imposed across most of Ukraine on Friday night, Zelenskyy said, after the Russians struck Vinnytsia and university buildings in Mykolaiv.

“Right now, as I write this address, air alert is on almost the entire territory of our state,” Zelenskyy said in late-night remarks. “We will definitely restore everything they destroyed.”

He said four people were in critical condition and four others were missing after a strike on a high-rise office building in Vinnytsia on Thursday injured dozens and killed three children, according to the city’s emergency service. the state of the country. Further south, in the city of Mykolaiv, missiles hit two university facilities on Friday, the regional governor said.

“So, I’m begging you, once again: please don’t ignore the airborne warning signals now,” Zelenskyy told the Nation. “Appropriate rules of conduct must be followed at all times. … We still have to fight. And we will fight.

The Russian attack on an industrial zone in Dnipro, Ukraine’s third most populous city, left at least three people dead and 15 injured, Ukrainian officials said on Friday. The attack burned cars and shattered windows of nearby residential buildings, local officials said.

Ukrainian forces successfully repelled Russian attacks after withdrawing from the town of Lysychansk earlier this month, Britain’s Ministry of Defense said in an intelligence update on Saturday. Lysychansk was the last major urban area controlled by Kyiv in Lugansk, the easternmost region of the country.

But the withdrawal allowed the Ukrainian army to shorten and straighten its defensive positions on the front lines, allowing it to concentrate its forces and fire against Russian advances. This “contributed to reducing Russia’s momentum”, the ministry said.

Kremlin forces have been on an operational pause this week, although they have launched small-scale offensives on the front lines, according to the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War. They now appear to be coming out of that rest period, the think tank said on Friday.

On the diplomatic front, Germany will provide Moldova with $40 million in direct budget aid to help the Eastern European country cope with the fallout from Russia’s war in Ukraine.

“We may not have the power to stop the war in Ukraine today or tomorrow, because of Russia’s brutality. But we have the means to help a democratic country avoid being crushed by the effects of this war,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock tweeted on Friday after a conference in Bucharest, Romania, in favor of Moldova.

The aid plan, which Baerbock described as “a direct grant to support the poorest families” in the country, will be submitted to the German parliament for approval, she told the conference. She said Moldova, which neighbors Ukraine and hosts an influx of refugees from that country, was feeling the “economic shock waves” of the conflict, including rising inflation and disruption to its supply chains. supply.

Fears of a war spillover also grew in Moldova earlier this year when explosions were reported in its Russian-affiliated breakaway region of Transnistria and a Russian commander suggested Moscow was aiming to create a pathway through the southern Ukraine.