According to Ukrainian sources, Russian troops fired rockets at several major cities in the south of the country on Saturday night. Two or three strong explosions were heard in the city of Dnipro, the portal Ukrajinska Pravda reported, citing the regional administration. Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy expects violent Russian attacks in the east of the country.
According to Ukrayinska Pravda, the area around the city of Kryvyi Rih was bombarded with rocket launchers. A gas station caught fire, said the head of the local military administration, Olexander Wilkul. According to him, Russian forces used several Grad (Hagel) rocket launchers.
Like all combat zone reports, the information was not independently verifiable. Vikul said the Kryvyi Rih district and the Dnipropetrovsk region as a whole are stable in the hands of the Ukrainian army. The Black Sea port city of Odessa was also hit by rockets late on Friday.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy expects violent Russian attacks in the east of the country. “Russian soldiers are being brought to Donbass. The same is going towards Kharkiv,” the head of state said in a video speech on Saturday night. “The situation in the east of our country remains very difficult.”
The Ukrainian General Staff announced that Russian troops would be withdrawn from the exclusion zone around the former Chernobyl nuclear power plant and adjacent areas in Belarus. Apparently, they would be transferred to the Russian region of Belgorod, from where the advance to Kharkiv would take place.
However, the British military assumed that explosions at a fuel depot and an ammunition depot at Belgorod would decrease supplies to Russian troops off Kharkiv. This was announced by the Ministry of Defense in a tweet. A fuel depot in Belgorod caught fire on Friday morning. Local authorities attributed this to the attack by two Ukrainian attack helicopters. Sources in Kiev were evasive. Days earlier, there were explosions at an ammunition depot in Belgorod.
Meanwhile, according to its commander, the Ukrainian Air Force continues to see the skies over Ukraine in its hands, despite heavy Russian attacks. “The enemy did not control the Ukrainian sky and does not control it,” said Lieutenant General Mykola Oleshchuk. The General Staff in Kiev posted the statements on Facebook late on Friday.
After the attack on February 24, Russia tried to eliminate the Ukrainian air force. This was not successful. Meanwhile, the Russian air force is attacking less with planes, but bombing from a distance with rockets. Oleshchuk demanded more modern weapons from Ukraine’s allies, including fighter jets and medium- and long-range anti-aircraft missile systems. Weapons can also be of foreign design.
The Lieutenant General’s statements about the remaining strength of the Ukrainian air force could not be independently verified. His troops suffered casualties. But Oleshchuk made the statement the day two suspected Ukrainian helicopters set fire to a fuel depot in the Russian city of Belgorod.
Early in the war, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy repeatedly called for NATO to create a no-fly zone over Ukraine. NATO refused to avoid fighting between Russian and Western alliance aircraft.
According to Ukrainian information, there was another exchange of prisoners with Russia. A government official said the Russian side had freed 86 Ukrainian soldiers from captivity. Initially, it was not known how many Russians were released in exchange. The exchange was the result of ongoing peace negotiations.
The US Department of Defense, for its part, wants to send another weapon worth 300 million dollars (270 million euros) to Ukraine. Among other things, the new package is expected to include various drones, missile systems, armored vehicles, munitions, night vision devices, secure communication systems, machine guns, medical supplies and the provision of commercial satellite imagery, the Pentagon announced overnight. Friday (Local Time).
The US government has already pledged $1.65 billion in military aid and weapons supplies to Ukraine since the start of Russia’s war of aggression. Since the beginning of last year, US aid has totaled $2.3 billion.
However, the new weapons deliveries announced by the Pentagon are expected to take a little longer. The process is not about delivering weapons and systems already in US possession, but about placing orders with manufacturers. The move “represents the beginning of a process to provide new capabilities to the Ukrainian armed forces,” he said.
At the same time, work will continue with the allies to send more arms deliveries to Ukraine. “The United States will continue to use all available means to support Ukrainian forces in the face of the Russian attack,” the Pentagon said. The US Congress passed a budget in March that earmarked $13.6 billion in humanitarian, economic and military aid to Ukraine through the end of September.