The airport in Lutsk, about 70 miles from the Polish border, was reportedly hit hard by shelling. The governor of the Volyn region said that four missiles were fired from a Russian bomber, two people were killed.
Columns of smoke also rose from the military airfield at Ivano-Frankivsk, about 150 miles south of Lutsk. It had previously been hit by rockets on the first day of the conflict.
“On the morning of March 11, high-precision long-range weapons struck at the military infrastructure of Ukraine. The military airfields in Lutsk and Ivano-Frankivsk have been put out of action,” the Russian Defense Ministry said on Friday.
Three Russian airstrikes also caused severe damage in and around the central city of Dnipro on Friday morning, killing one person, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said on its official Telegram channel. One hit hit a kindergarten and a residential building, while the other hit a shoe factory, causing a fire, the service said.
Many Ukrainians evacuated in recent days from other cities under Russian fire have been brought to the relative safety of the Dnieper.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said on Friday that it remained “gravely concerned about the growing death toll and human suffering in Ukraine” and called for “an immediate end to the attacks.”
“Civilians are being killed and maimed in what appears to be indiscriminate attacks, with Russian forces using wide-range explosives in or near populated areas,” said OHCHR spokeswoman Liz Trossell.
OHCHR said it had recorded 549 civilian deaths and 957 wounded since the invasion began on 24 February, “although the actual figure could be much higher.”
“Schools, hospitals and kindergartens have been hit – with extremely devastating consequences,” Throssell said. On March 3, she said, 47 civilians were killed in Russian airstrikes on two schools and several residential buildings in Chernihiv, and on March 9, a Russian airstrike hit a Mariupol hospital, injuring at least 17 civilians.
“We are still investigating reports that at least three civilians may have been killed in an airstrike,” she said. “We spoke to various sources in Mariupol, including local authorities, and consistently indicated that the hospital was clearly identifiable and operational when it was hit.”
Throssell also said that OHCHR had received “credible reports of several incidents of cluster munitions being used by Russian forces, including in populated areas.” According to her, the use of cluster munitions in populated areas is “incompatible with international humanitarian law.”
Elsewhere, in the southern city of Nikolaev, heavy shelling erupted on Friday evening.
Video on social media shows fires in the area, and the head of the Mykolaiv regional administration, Vitaly Kim, said there was “active fighting” in the Guryevka area north of the city.
“We are trying to push them further,” Kim said on his Telegram channel. In a series of messages, Kim said the shelling was “indiscriminate shooting at civilian targets” including a cafe and an apartment building.
UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said on Friday that the number of people who have left Ukraine has reached 2.5 million.
Many others are still in dire conditions as Russian troops shell several cities. But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Friday there were ongoing efforts to help them.
Cargo, including food and medicine, is sent to 12 cities – Izyum, Energodor, Volnovakha, Pologi, Bucha, Gostomel, Borodyanka, Andreevka, Mykulichi, Makarov, Kozarovichi and Mariupol, he said in a video message from the streets of Kyiv.
The Ukrainian military “secured a ceasefire for the operation of these humanitarian corridors,” the president said, warning that if Russia starts “shooting again and disrupting the rescue operations of people, they will receive a response from the whole world.”
Zelenskiy also urged EU leaders gathered in Versailles, France, to take tougher action against Moscow on a second day, saying if Russia continues shelling his country, sanctions are “not enough.”
EU High Representative for Foreign Policy Josep Borrell said ahead of the meeting that EU leaders would vote in favor of doubling the bloc’s financial support for the Ukrainian armed forces. If approved, the total amount will be more than $1 billion.
US Vice President Kamala Harris described the United States’ commitment to protecting NATO members as “ironclad” when she paid a visit to Romania to reassure allies on NATO’s eastern fringe. Ukraine is not a member of the alliance.
Russian convoy moving
Closer to Kiev, fighting intensified northeast and east of the capital on Friday after Ukrainians successfully intercepted and attacked an advancing Russian tank column on Thursday.
According to the Kiev authorities, as a result of a night air strike on the Brovarsky district, east of the capital, no one was injured. Ukrainian authorities also reported a missile attack on the town of Baryshivka on Friday night, about 45 miles east of the town.
The Russian convoy, which had been stationed near Kiev for nearly two weeks, has now dispersed, according to Maxar satellite imagery taken Thursday. The forces seem to be regrouping.
“Ukraine’s tactics of targeting supply lines worked well, especially during the first five to ten days of the war. This was partly due to Ukrainian tactics and partly to the way Russia acted,” Thomas Bullock, senior analyst at a defense intelligence company. Janes told CNN.
“In the first couple of days of the war, Russian forces seemed to prioritize moving forward quickly to secure targets. This means that they did not advance as a single front line, defending territory as they went. This effectively allowed Ukrainian forces to slip behind Russian forward mechanized units and logistics columns moving along unprotected roads in the rear,” Bullock said.
“It is unclear how effective this tactic will be as Russia begins to refocus its forces on a longer war after they failed to secure a quick victory,” he added.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Friday that Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine is proceeding successfully, despite claims by Western leaders that its armed forces have encountered unplanned obstacles and resistance.
“Everything is going according to plan, we report to you every day this week,” Shoigu told Russian President Vladimir Putin at a televised meeting of the country’s Security Council.
Shoigu said the Russian army had received more than 16,000 applications from volunteers from the Middle East wishing to join the war in Ukraine. He also asked Putin to provide more weapons to arm separatist areas of Donbass in eastern Ukraine, including weapons that Shoigu claims the Russian army seized from the Ukrainians.
Putin supported both proposals, stating that Russia should help transfer to the region those foreign volunteers who are ready to fight in the Donbas.
In response to Shoigu’s comments, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that at the moment it is not about sending volunteers from Russia to fight in Ukraine.
Logistical problems, resistance persists
There is growing evidence that the city of Volnovakha in eastern Ukraine has been finally captured by Russian forces and their allies in the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic. The city was surrounded almost from the beginning of the Russian invasion, but it was fiercely defended by Ukrainian troops.
Some social media videos from the city show Russian soldiers and vehicles in several areas, as well as abandoned Ukrainian tanks. Other videos show widespread destruction in Volnovakha, with Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov saying the town had been taken.
Russia has made additional gains in the rest of the country over the past 24 hours, a senior US defense official told reporters on Friday.
But the French government painted a far from rosy picture of the success of the Russian army.
The Russian army was ill-prepared for the invasion of Ukraine and is now facing many difficulties on the ground, “especially in the field of logistics and intelligence,” Pascal Yanni, spokesman for the French armed forces, told France2 TV channel on Friday.
“It is possible that an attack on Kyiv will be made in the coming days, but actually taking Kyiv under control is a completely different matter and it will take a lot, a lot of time,” he said. “The Russian army is also facing a premature spring,” he added, as thawing land makes it difficult for the military to move.
The British Ministry of Defense said on Friday that Russian troops continue to make “slight advances” towards Kyiv, but may prepare for a new attack on the Ukrainian capital in the coming days.
“It is highly unlikely that Russia has successfully achieved the goals set out in its pre-invasion plan,” the intelligence report said. “Logistics problems that impede Russia’s advance persist, as does strong Ukrainian resistance.”
A Western Defense Ministry spokesman confirmed on Friday that a third Russian general had been killed by the Ukrainian military. He was appointed Major General Andrei Kolesnikov and was commander of the Eastern Military District, according to the Russian Defense Ministry website.
For context, the official noted that three officers of the Russian General Staff were killed in the entire Syrian conflict.
Tim Lister of CNN reported from Kyiv, Gianluca Mezzofiore and Laura Smith-Spark from London, and Paul Murphy from New York. Celine Alhaldi of CNN, Lindsey Isaac, Camille Knight, Joseph Ataman, Amy Cassidy, Sarah Dean, Niamh Kennedy, Matilda Kuklish, Max Foster, and Jake Kwon contributed to this report.