An obvious Russian air strike struck Kyiv’s main TV tower in the heart of the Ukrainian capital on Tuesday, breaking some of the state’s broadcast but leaving the structure intact.
After the explosion erupted in the city and saw smoke rising in the Babi Yar district, the interior ministry said the equipment was damaged and “the canals will not work for some time.”
At least five people were killed and five were injured in the rocket strike, Ukraine’s emergency services said.
Photos from the scene show charred bodies and cars damaged in an apparent Russian attack that disrupted some broadcasts.
The attack on the TV tower also hit a major Holocaust memorial in Kyiv, according to Ukrainian authorities and the site’s board. A spokesman for the memorial said a security team had been sent to the site to assess the damage.
The Babi Yar Memorial rests on a mass grave containing 34,000 Jews who were slaughtered there in 1941, when the city was under Nazi occupation. The massacre was carried out by SS troops along with local collaborators.
“To the world: what’s the point of saying ‘never again’ for 80 years if the world is silent when a bomb falls on the same spot on Babin Yar?” At least 5 killed. History repeats itself, “said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, a Jew and family members killed in the Holocaust. wrote in a tweet.
The Russians destroy the TV tower in Kyiv.
They are trying to cut us off from communications. pic.twitter.com/ppi264K5Jf– Ilia Ponomarenko (@IAPonomarenko) March 1, 2022
Nathan Sharansky, chairman of the Babi Yar Holocaust Memorial and former head of the Jewish Agency, said in a statement: “[Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s attempt to distort and manipulate the Holocaust to justify an illegal invasion of a sovereign democracy is disgusting. Symbolically, he began attacking Kyiv by bombing the site of Babi Yar, the largest of the Nazi massacres.
Sharansky was referring to Putin’s claims before the Russian invasion of Ukraine that he was doing so in part to “disinfect” the country.
“We at the Babi Yar Holocaust Memorial, built on the largest mass grave of the Holocaust in Europe, are working to preserve historical memory after decades of Soviet suppression of historical truth so that the evils of the past never happen again. We must not allow the truth – once again – to fall victim to war, “said Sharansky, who was born in Ukraine.
Earlier in the day, the Babi Yar Holocaust Memorial issued a statement sharply criticizing Putin and his invasion, calling for him to be investigated by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
People with Ukrainian and Israeli flags approach the monument to the victims of the Nazi massacre of Jews in 1941 in Babi Yar in Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, April 13, 2018 (AP Photo / Efrem Lukatsky)
The strike followed a warning from the Russian Defense Ministry that Russian troops would attack what they said was the infrastructure of Ukraine’s intelligence services in Kyiv, and urged residents living nearby to leave.
“In order to suppress information attacks against Russia, the technological infrastructure of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and the 72nd Chief PSO (Psychological Operations Unit) in Kyiv will be hit with high-precision weapons,” said Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor. Konashenkov. said.
“We urge Kyiv residents living near relay junctions to leave their homes,” Konashenkov added.
The statement came as Russian troops stepped up efforts to capture Kyiv, with a 40-mile convoy of hundreds of Russian tanks and other vehicles marching on the capital in what the West feared was an attempt to overthrow Ukraine’s government and install Kremlin-friendly regime. .
Ukrainian authorities have accused the Russian military of striking residential areas in several cities, including the country’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, where fierce fighting is taking place.
Ukraine claims up to 350 civilians have been killed since Russia’s invasion.
In this frame of footage published by the State Service for Special Communication and Information Protection of Ukraine, firefighters work in the building of the district administration on the central square of the city in Kharkov, Ukraine, after the Russian shelling on March 1, 2022 (State Service of special communication and information protection of Ukraine through AP)
The warning to Kyiv residents also came after Russian strikes hit Kharkiv’s central square and other civilian sites. Putin’s forces have also pushed back attacks on other cities across the country, including the strategic ports of Odessa and Mariupol to the south.
Konashenkov said Russian troops and pro-Moscow rebels have joined forces in a key region off the coast of the Sea of Azov in eastern Ukraine. Russian troops annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine in 2014 and have been using the region for attacks since Thursday, when Moscow launched its invasion.
The rebels “joined the military units of the armed forces of the Russian Federation, which took control of the regions of Ukraine along the coast of the Sea of Azov,” Konashenkov said in a statement.
Pro-Kremlin separatist fighters in eastern Ukraine are pushing west as part of the offensive. A defense official in the Donetsk breakaway area said earlier Tuesday that the forces intend to encircle a key port city separating the annexed peninsula from rebel territory.
Electricity was cut off in Mariupol on the Sea of Azov after attacks by advancing Russian forces, regional leader Pavlo Kirilenko said earlier in the day.
A video of Melitopol, a city in southeastern Ukraine on a river that flows into the Sea of Azov, shows a group of Ukrainians standing in the middle of the road to block a Russian military convoy and shouting at troops, one of whom fires his rifle into the air. .
Then you can see an armored Russian car stepping in as Ukrainian citizens stand in its way.
Incredible footage from Melitopol of Ukrainians stopping the advance of a Russian convoy and chanting “Occupiers!” and “Killers!” Anxious Russians shoot in the air pic.twitter.com/j3jypGJdgz
– Matthew Luxmoor (@mjluxmoore) March 1, 2022
Day 6 of Europe’s biggest land war since World War II has found Russia increasingly isolated from harsh economic sanctions, which have wreaked havoc on its economy and left the country virtually without friends, with the exception of China and Belarus.
In Kharkov, with a population of about 1.5 million, Ukrainian authorities say 10 people have been killed in a blow to an administrative building in the Soviet-era region. Explosions penetrated residential areas, and the maternity ward was moved to an underground shelter.
Kharkiv’s Freedom Square – Ukraine’s largest square and the center of the city’s public life – was hit by what was seen as a rocket in an attack that many Ukrainians saw as brazen evidence that the Russian invasion was not just a coup. for military purposes, but also to break their spirits.
Ukraine’s Emergency Service said eight people had also died in a Russian air strike on a residential building in Kharkov.
Russian shelling killed at least 11 civilians in the city on Monday.
Zelensky called the attack on the main square in Kharkov “outright, undisguised terror”, blaming the Russian missile and calling it a war crime. “This is state terrorism of the Russian Federation,” he said.
In an emotional appeal to the European Parliament, Zelenski later said: “We are also fighting to be equal members of Europe. I believe that today we show everyone what we are. “
He said 16 children had been killed on Monday, mocking Russia’s claim that it was for military purposes only.
“Where are the children, in what military factories do they work?” What tanks are they targeting when launching cruise missiles? said Zelensky.
An armed man is seen in the damaged city hall of Kharkiv, Ukraine, on March 1, 2022, destroyed as a result of Russian shelling. (Sergey Bobok / AFP)
In an alarming development, Human Rights Watch said it had documented a cluster bomb attack in front of a hospital in eastern Ukraine in recent days. Locals also reported the use of ammunition in Kharkiv and the village of Kiyanka, although there is no independent confirmation.
If confirmed, this would be an alarming new level of brutality in the war and could lead to further isolation in Russia.
The Kremlin denied using such weapons on Tuesday, reiterating that its forces had hit only military targets – despite evidence documented by Associated Press reporters of shelling homes, schools and hospitals.
The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor said earlier this week that he planned to launch an investigation into possible war crimes.
Unconquered by Western condemnation, Russian authorities stepped up their threats of escalation, days after raising the specter of a nuclear attack. A senior Kremlin official has warned that the West’s “economic war” against Russia could become “real.”
Initial talks between Ukraine and Russia on Monday did not lead to a halt to fighting, although the two sides agreed to meet again in the coming days.
Meanwhile, a Ukrainian military official said Belarusian troops joined the war in the Chernihiv region on Tuesday, without giving details. But just before that, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said his country had no plans to join the battle.
The movements of the Russian military have so far been halted by fierce resistance on the ground and a surprising inability to dominate Ukraine’s airspace.
Ukrainians used ingenuity to try to stop Russia’s offensive: on the highway between Odessa and Nikolaev in southern Ukraine, residents piled up tractor tires filled with sand and covered with sandbags to block Russian military convoys. In Kyiv, sandbags were piled up in front of city hall doors and windows.
Times of Israel officials contributed to this report.