Russia overnight bombed a factory in Kyiv it claims made the rockets that sank the Moscow River, as the Kremlin vowed to step up attacks on the Ukrainian capital.
Heavy explosions were seen in Kyiv overnight, before Russia’s defense ministry said early Friday that it had destroyed the “Vizar” factory, which makes anti-ship missiles and other Ukrainian missiles.
The attack came just a day after the Moskva – the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet – was sunk after a fire and explosion on board which Ukraine says was caused when she came under fire from two cruise missiles. Moscow says only that the cause is “under investigation”.
Meanwhile, in an address to the nation Thursday night, President Zelenskyy hailed the heroism of Ukrainians who have fought back the Russian invasion for 50 days – despite warnings, it would only last five.
Russia says it blew up a Ukrainian munitions factory near Kyiv overnight using cruise missiles fired from ships in the Black Sea (pictured at launch).
According to Moscow, the factory made the same types of missiles that sank the Moskva, its flagship in the Black Sea on Thursday
Speaking to Ukrainians overnight, President Zelenskyy hailed their heroism in resisting Russia for 50 days while the world expected them to hold out for just five
Russia warns US to stop arming Ukraine
Russia has urged the US to stop sending arms to Ukraine, warning of “unpredictable consequences” if it continues to do so.
The warning came in the form of an official diplomatic note seen by the Washington Post.
It said American and NATO shipments of the “most sensitive” weapons would “add fuel” to the conflict, which is now approaching its second month.
The two-page note was delivered after Biden agreed to a new shipment of $800 million in military aid to Ukraine, including heavy artillery and shells, helicopters and armored personnel carriers.
“What the Russians are telling us privately is exactly what we have been telling the world publicly — that the massive aid we are providing to our Ukrainian partners is proving extraordinarily effective,” a senior US official said of the note.
Zelenskyi said he remembered the first day of the invasion, when many world leaders, unsure whether Ukraine could survive, advised him to leave the country.
He added: “But they didn’t know how brave Ukrainians are, how much we value freedom and the opportunity to live the way we want.”
Zelensky on Thursday told Ukrainians to be proud of surviving 50 days under Russian attack when the Russians “gave us a maximum of five”.
He called it “an achievement of millions of Ukrainians, everyone who made the most important decision of their lives on February 24 – to fight”.
Russia’s defense ministry warned early Friday that it would step up attacks on Kyiv in the coming days in response to Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory.
A village in Russia’s border region with Belarus, where a military base is located, was hit Thursday after explosions at a munitions dump and oil facility in Belgorod, along a nearby railway line.
Images from Belgorod in the early hours of Friday morning showed anti-aircraft missiles in the sky, suggesting fresh attacks were underway.
Meanwhile, the military claimed to have shot down a Ukrainian Mi-8 helicopter involved in the attack on the Bryansk region near Chernihiv.
Ukraine has not admitted to carrying out such attacks, but has not denied being behind them either.
“The number and scale of rocket attacks on targets in Kyiv will increase in response to terrorist attacks or acts of sabotage on Russian territory by the nationalist Kiev regime,” Russia’s Defense Ministry said in a statement.
The blasts came hours after the Russian Defense Ministry announced that the Moskva, the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, sank while being towed after being badly damaged – reports said Putin was “enraged”.
Amid a barrage of bad news for the Russian despot’s war, his forces appeared on Friday on the verge of capturing Mariupol — a southern port city that has now been under siege for nearly two months.
Heavy explosions were reported south of Kyiv overnight after Russia bombed an alleged missile factory
The Defense Ministry claimed its forces had seized control of the Ilyum Steel Works, a huge industrial complex in central Mariupol where marines and troops from the Azov Battalion were making their last stand.
If confirmed, it would mean that Mariupol is on the verge of falling into Russian hands. It would be the largest city Putin’s men have ever taken, albeit at the cost of near-total destruction.
While some forces in the region are likely to continue waging guerrilla operations against Russian forces, defeating the city’s defenses would also free up troops to join an expected attack on eastern Ukraine.
British intelligence noted on Thursday that the battle for Mariupol is currently tying up “a significant number of Russian troops and equipment.”
Separately, Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Friday that its Strategic Missile Forces “eliminated up to 30 Polish mercenaries” in a strike on the village of Izyumskoe, near the city of Kharkiv in northeastern Ukraine.
It said the mercenaries belonged to “a private Polish military company,” but didn’t say whether Ukrainian troops were also killed.
The reported missile attack was one of the largest against foreign targets in Ukraine since another missile killed up to 180 foreign mercenaries in western Ukraine last month, according to the Russian military.
Russia invaded on February 24 and has potentially lost thousands of combatants in the weeks since. The conflict has killed scores of Ukrainian civilians and forced millions more to flee.
It came as the head of the UN World Food Program (WFP) said people were “starving” in the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol, and he predicted the country’s humanitarian crisis is likely to worsen as Russia ramps up its attack.
Ukraine continues to attack Russia as its invasion falters – sinking the Moscow River, attacking Belgorod and fighting in eastern Ukraine. But Moscow claims its troops are on the verge of taking Mariupol, which has now been under siege for nearly two months
Anti-aircraft missiles can be seen in the sky over Belgorod, Russia on Friday – suggesting the city has come under renewed attack from Ukraine
WFP Executive Director David Beasley warned in an interview with The Associated Press in Kyiv on Thursday that Russia’s invasion of grain-exporting Ukraine risks destabilizing nations far from its shores and could trigger waves of migrants seeking better lives elsewhere search.
His fears were shared by the US ambassador to the United Nations, who accused Russia of worsening the food insecurity in Yemen and elsewhere by invading Ukraine, calling it “just another grim example of the domino effects of Russia’s unprovoked, unjust, ruthless war has sustained the world’s most vulnerable”.
Linda Thomas-Greenfield told a UN Security Council meeting on war-torn Yemen on Thursday that the WFP had identified the Arab world’s poorest nation as one of the countries hardest hit by wheat price increases and a lack of imports from Ukraine.
Russia’s Deputy Ambassador to the UN Dmitry Polyansky replied: “The main factor behind the instability and the source of today’s problem is not the Russian special military operation in Ukraine, but the sanctions imposed on our country aimed at cutting off all supplies from Russia and the supply chain , apart from the supplies that these western countries need, ie energy.’
The sharp exchange came a day after a UN task force warned that the war is threatening to devastate the economies of many developing countries, which now face even higher food and energy costs and increasingly difficult financial conditions.