KYIV, Ukraine — Russian airstrikes hit Ukrainian cities far from the front lines on Friday as Moscow’s ground offensive appears to have repositioned some forces in the country’s north, in what Western officials fear is a prelude to another attack on capital.
The missiles hit airports in the western Ukrainian cities of Ivano-Frankivsk and Lutsk at dawn, where attacks have been rare since the invasion began more than two weeks ago.
In eastern Ukraine, three rockets landed in Dnipro, where city officials say a residential building and a kindergarten were destroyed.
Russia stepped up its attacks on Mariupol, seeking to capture the strategic port city; two Ukrainian refugees enter Poland every three seconds; According to satellite imagery, Russian military equipment was deployed about 20 miles from Kyiv. Photo: Yevgeny Maloletka/Associated Press
Western officials are wondering if the relative lull in Russian aggression around Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, is part of an effort to redeploy forces and lay the groundwork for a new strike. The UK Ministry of Defense said it was concerned that Russia was trying to reboot for a new attack in the coming days, including an attack on Kyiv.
A large Russian military convoy last seen northwest of Kyiv has largely dispersed and redeployed, Maxar Technologies said. Maxar, which tracked the convoy using satellite imagery, said it had documented armored maneuvers in towns near Antonov Airport northwest of Kyiv. Maksar said the images showed elements of the convoy relocating near the town of Lubyanka outside Kyiv, with towed artillery howitzers in firing positions nearby.
A still from a video provided by the Ukrainian military shows an ambush on a column of Russian tanks.
Photo: Military Defense of Ukraine/Zuma Press
In Moscow, the Kremlin has signaled plans to deploy additional forces to its western border and send volunteers from the Middle East, whom it has named, to fight in Ukraine. Russia is recruiting Syrians skilled in urban warfare, as its incursion could spread deep into Ukrainian cities.
More than 16,000 volunteers from the Middle East have been asked to fight for Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, according to Russian state media, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said during a televised meeting with President Vladimir Putin.
“We must support them and help them enter the war zone,” Putin said. He also instructed the siloviki to prepare plans to strengthen Russia’s western borders and counter efforts by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to strengthen its members in Eastern Europe.
Mr. Putin has framed his support for international volunteers as a response to foreign fighters coming to Ukraine to help Kiev.
A street in the besieged Mariupol in southern Ukraine, destroyed by shelling.
Photo: Yevgeny Maloletka/Associated Press
Anti-tank installations were built in the center of Kyiv.
Photo: GLEB GARANICH/REUTERS
Western officials are also increasingly concerned that Moscow will resort to deploying chemical, biological or nuclear weapons after failing to make progress in the first two weeks of the war.
In a late Thursday address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that Russia was setting the stage for such an escalation by making unsubstantiated claims that the US was funding biological warfare efforts in Ukraine. The Russian Defense Ministry said Washington supports research that could contribute to the spread of disease through wild birds migrating between Russia and Ukraine, adding that “biological laboratories set up and funded in Ukraine are conducting experiments with bat coronavirus samples.”
The White House denied the accusations, saying that allegations of the use of biological or chemical weapons could indicate Russian efforts to build the basis for their own use of such weapons.
“This worries me very much, because we have been repeatedly convinced that if you want to know the plans of Russia, you should look at what Russia accuses others of,” Zelensky said.
The Ukrainian military leave on a Russian tank they captured near Brovary near Kiev.
Photo: THOMAS PETER/REUTERS
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