“Dual missile and drone strikes” from Russia have become a daily terror for the people of Ukraine as border violence between the two bitter rivals escalates and the prospect of peace becomes increasingly distant.
Russian forces launched a double bombing of a Ukrainian hospital on Friday, sparking a devastating fire on a 1,500-square-yard roof.
The war crime against civilians did not result in casualties as all patients were evacuated to shelter minutes before the bombs dropped by two drones 40 minutes apart. The incident occurred early on Friday and resulted in the destruction of a hospital in the village of Zolochiv in the Kharkiv region, injuring a 33-year-old medic. The attack came as British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer prepared to meet allies for his “coalition of the willing” diplomatic group aimed at resolving the Ukraine conflict on Saturday.
Ukraine and Russia continue to trade brutal missile and drone strikes as world leaders try to persuade them to agree to a ceasefire. Oleg Sinegubov, head of the Kharkiv regional military administration, said: “A drone strike caused a fire on the roof. Forty minutes later, Russia launched a second attack using two more drones.” It comes amid intense fighting in Kursk, on the Russian border, where Russian troops are trying to push out Ukrainian forces.
On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said his army was “in full control of the fighting” and warned Ukrainian troops to “surrender or die.” He noted that they were being surrounded and pursued inside Russia, giving considerable PR to the fighting on the ground. Meanwhile, inside Russia, a growing number of people are being drawn into the war that Ukraine is waging daily.
Some of the explosions this week have come too close for comfort for the Russian leader, who has sought to hide the scale of Russian casualties in the conflict. Hundreds of thousands of Russian men are believed to have died in the fighting, and many more are seriously wounded. Putin’s recruiters are desperately short of men, and have even been forced to scour Russia’s prisons for thieves, murderers and even rapists, offering them the chance to sign up for the war in exchange for possible freedom.
Ukraine said on Friday it shot down a drone “virtually under Putin’s nose — 1,312 feet from his route from Novo-Ogaryovo, his official residence outside Moscow, to the Kremlin.” The claim was not attributed to a specific source but was disseminated by Kyiv’s SBU secret service. Other SBU drones hit “a missile depot for S-300/S-400 air defense systems on Russian territory,” according to the pro-Zelensky Telegram channel Pravda Gerashchenko.
The rare drone strikes penetrating Moscow’s defenses occurred “less than 400 meters from Kutuzovsky Prospekt, a quarter mile from the Russian Foreign Ministry building and two and a half miles from the Kremlin,” according to the report. Ukraine claimed at the start of the war that it had struck the Kremlin.
Sourse: www.mirror.co.uk
