Ukraine faces lethal Russian missile onslaught after securing tanks from allies By Reuters

By Tom Balmforth and Ivan Lyubysh-Kirdey

KYIV (Reuters) – Russia pounded Ukraine with missiles and drones, killing not less than 11 individuals, based on officers, after Western allies pledged tanks to Kyiv in its struggle in opposition to Moscow’s invasion.

Air raid alarms sounded throughout Ukraine on Thursday as individuals headed to work. Within the capital Kyiv, crowds took cowl for a time in underground metro stations.

“Not a single room is left intact, all the pieces obtained hit,” mentioned Halyna Panosyan, 67, surveying twisted sheets of corrugated steel, crumpled masonry and a big missile crater exterior her ruined home in Hlevakha close to Kyiv.

“There was a particularly loud strike that made me soar up. I used to be within the bed room … I used to be saved by the truth that the bed room is to the opposite facet of the home.”

Russian forces skilled tank, mortar and artillery hearth on greater than 60 cities and villages in an arc of territory extending from Chernihiv and Sumy areas within the north by Kharkiv area within the northeast and within the focal factors of Russian makes an attempt to advance in Donetsk area within the east – Bakhmut and Avdiivka.

Ukraine’s army mentioned it shot down 47 of 59 Russian missiles – some fired from Tu-95 strategic bombers within the Russian Arctic. Russia additionally launched 37 air strikes, 17 of them utilizing Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones. All drones had been downed, the army common employees mentioned.

Eleven individuals had been killed and 11 wounded within the drone and missile strikes, which spanned 11 areas and likewise broken 35 buildings, a State Emergency Service spokesperson mentioned.

Russia responded with fury to information on Wednesday that Germany and the USA would ship dozens of recent tanks to Ukraine. Extra tanks will come from Canada, Poland, Britain, Finland and Norway whereas a number of extra allies together with France, Spain and the Netherlands had been contemplating sending tanks too.

ENERGY TARGETED

Moscow has previously reacted to Ukrainian successes with massed air strikes that left thousands and thousands with out gentle, warmth or water. On Thursday, it appeared to observe that sample. Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal mentioned Russian assaults on Thursday focused power crops.

“I held an pressing assembly at present in regards to the power state of affairs – in regards to the shortages which are occurring and restore work after the terrorists’ strikes. Restore groups are working in these websites the place hits occurred,” President Volodomyr Zelenskiy mentioned in a night video tackle on Thursday.

The Kremlin mentioned it noticed the promised supply of Western tanks as proof of rising “direct involvement” of the USA and Europe within the 11-month-old struggle, one thing each deny.

Western allies have up to now dedicated about 150 tanks whereas Ukraine has mentioned it wants a whole lot to interrupt Russian defensive traces and recapture occupied territory within the south and east. Each Moscow and Kyiv, which have up to now relied on Soviet-era T-72 tanks, are anticipated to mount new floor offensives in springtime.

After being promised trendy tanks, Ukraine is now searching for Western fourth-generation fighter jets such because the U.S. F-16, an adviser to Ukraine’s defence minister mentioned.

DTEK, Ukraine’s largest personal power producer, carried out pre-emptive emergency energy shutdowns in Kyiv on Thursday, the encompassing area and the areas of Odesa and Dnipropetrovsk.

In Odesa, the Black Sea port designated a “World Heritage in Hazard” website on Wednesday by the U.N. cultural company UNESCO, Russian missiles broken power amenities, authorities mentioned, simply as French Overseas Minister Catherine Colonna was arriving.

“What we noticed at present, new strikes on civilian Ukrainian infrastructure just isn’t waging struggle, it is waging struggle crimes,” she mentioned.

The US on Thursday formally designated Russian personal army firm the Wagner Group as a transnational legal group, freezing its U.S. property for serving to Russia’s army within the Ukraine struggle.

Since invading Ukraine on Feb. 24 final yr, Russia has shifted the main target of its rhetoric from “denazifying” and “demilitarising” its neighbour to confronting what’s says is an aggressive and expansionist U.S.-led NATO alliance.

Russia’s invasion has killed 1000’s of civilians, uprooted thousands and thousands and diminished cities to rubble.