Russia pummels Ukraine after local ceasefire ends
Kyiv (AFP) — Russia pummeled Ukraine in overnight strikes, Ukrainian authorities said Tuesday, as a flare-up in fighting dashed hopes of progress towards peace in the nearly five-year war.
The strikes rained down across the country, killing dozens of people, forcing patients to evacuate a medical facility and triggering a wave of ballistic missile alerts.
In Russia, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said nearly 500 drones heading towards the capital region were destroyed.
The attacks followed a rare pause in the fighting between Russia and Ukraine in the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson, which ended Sunday.
The truce, which was the longest in the war that erupted in February 2022, enabled a humanitarian mission to the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky.
Hours after the local ceasefire ended, Russia targeted a village in Zaporizhzhia in southeastern Ukraine, killing at least 26 people, the acting regional governor said.
On Tuesday, authorities in Zaporizhzhia said Russian bombing had killed 29 people.
The head of Zaporizhzhia regional military administration, Ivan Fedorov, accused Moscow of “striking people who had come to receive humanitarian aid.”
In the northeastern city of Kharkiv, the regional military administration’s head Oleg Synegubov said a Russian strike hit a medical facility, wounding 25 people, forcing around 200 patients to evacuate and damaging a building, windows and cars.
Ukraine’s army warned of ballistic missiles heading towards Kharkiv and various other parts of the country, including the capital Kyiv, Dnipro and Sumy.
Dnipropetrovsk’s regional governor Oleksandr Ganzha said a Russian strike hit critical infrastructure in the Dnipro, as well as in President Volodymyr Zelensky’s hometown Kryvy Rig.
Russia’s defense ministry said Tuesday it had carried out a “massive strike” on energy facilities across Ukraine, and port infrastructure in the Odessa region.
Ukraine’s neighbor Poland said it activated air defenses aimed at protecting its airspace, particularly in border areas.
The strikes came as Britain and France announced around 2,800 troops from 10 European countries will stage military exercises this month in support of Ukraine.
The soldiers from 10 European countries will meet in Poland for the first exercise of a new multinational force — but it has no offensive mission and is only to be deployed once a ceasefire is agreed to end the war.
In a fresh push for diplomacy as the conflict grinds through its fifth year, US special envoy Steve Witkoff said Tuesday that Washington-led talks between Russia and Ukraine were set to resume next week.