Russian forces on Thursday attacked Ukraine’s kyiv and Chernihiv regions, areas that had not been targeted by missiles for weeks, while Ukrainian authorities announced an operation to liberate an occupied region in the country’s south.
According to the kyiv regional governor, Oleksiy Kuleba, a town in the Vyshgorod district – 20 kilometers from the center of Kiev – was the target of an attack on Thursday morning, which it reached “an infrastructure”, but it is still unknown if it caused victims.
Kuleba blamed the attacks on State Day, which Ukraine celebrates for the first time on Thursday.
Russia, with the help of missiles, is taking revenge on the great popular resistance that the Ukrainians managed to organize precisely because of their statehood,” the governor told Ukrainian television.
“Ukraine has already spoiled the plans of Russia and will continue to defendhe added.
The governor of Chernihiv, Vyacheslav Chaus, reported, in turn, that several missiles hit the town of Honcharivska, having been fired from Belarus.
Russian troops withdrew from the kyiv and Chernihiv regions months ago after failing to capture both.
The return of attacks in these regions comes a day after the leader of pro-Kremlin separatists in the east, Denis Pushilin, made a public call for Russian forces to “liberate Russian cities founded by the Russian people from kyiv, Chernihiv, Poltava, Odessa, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Zaporizhia and Lutsk”.
Kharkiv, the second largest city in Ukraine, was also targeted by shelling overnight, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said this morning.
The southern city of Mykolaiv was also attacked, with one person injured.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian army continues to strike back in the occupied southern region of Kherson, after targeting key bridges over the Dnieper on Wednesday.
Ukraine’s presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovich is quoted on Thursday by the Ukrainian press as saying that the the operation to liberate Kherson “has already started”.
According to Arestovich, the kyiv forces want to isolate the Russian troops on the ground and leave them with three options: “withdraw if possible, surrender or be destroyed.”
The secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, Oleksiy Danilov, said Wednesday, in statements to national television, that he wants to evaluate “with caution” the timing of the counter-offensive.
“I really liked that it was everything much faster”he admitted, adding, however, that “the enemy is now concentrating as many forces as possible precisely in the direction of Kherson.”
A large-scale movement of Russian troops has begun, they are gathering additional forces,” Danilov warned.
The British military also said today that Ukraine’s counteroffensive in Kherson is “gaining momentum.”
His forces probably established a bridge south of the Ingulets River, which shares a northern border with Russian-occupied Kherson,” the British Defense Ministry said, adding that Ukraine had used its new long-range artillery to damage at least three of the bridges over the Dnieper River, “on which Russia depended to supply the areas under its control.”
Ukraine’s presidential office said Thursday morning that Russian shelling of cities and towns in the past 24 hours has killed at least five civilians, all from eastern Donetsk, and wounded nine more.
Source: Observadora
