Russia mercilessly struck Ukraine with drone strikes and missile strikes early Monday, killing no less than 4 civilians, on the eve of the Victory Day holiday marking the Soviet Union’s conquer Nazi Germany in World War II, which Kiev celebrated the day before in a break with Moscow.
The mayor of Kiev said Russia launched 60 Iranian drones, including 36 within the capital, all of which were shot down.
Mayor Vitaly Klitschko said in a Telegram post that debris from the destroyed drones hit a two-story apartment constructing and a parked automobile, which caught fire.
In response to Serhiy Popko, head of the Kyiv Military Administration, no less than five people within the capital were injured by fragments of crashed drones during a nighttime attack that set off anti-aircraft alerts in the center of the night.
Russian shelling of 127 targets in northern, southern and eastern Ukraine killed three civilians, the Ukrainian defense ministry said.
Outbreaks spread across the southern Kherson region and southeastern Zaporizhia.
Vladimir Rogov, a Russian official in Zaporizhia, said Russian forces had hit a warehouse and a position of Ukrainian troops within the small town of Orichiv.
Russian long-range bombers fired eight cruise missiles towards southern Odessa, Ukraine, one of which hit a food depot, causing massive hell. The attack left one person dead and three injured.
In response to Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yuri Ihnat, some of the Soviet cruise missiles fired towards Odessa either self-destructed or fell into the Black Sea before reaching their goal.
Elsewhere in Ukraine, Russian forces were making a final desperate try to take the eastern city of Bakhmut just in time for the Victory Day celebrations – and before Kiev’s expected counter-offensive.
The top of Wagner’s mercenary group said late Sunday that his fighters are getting closer to taking control of the ravaged city after nine months of bloody, devastating battles that each side liken to a “meat grinder.”
Yevgeny Prigozhin’s comments got here after he reneged on a threat to withdraw his forces from Bakhmut as early as Wednesday, citing an absence of ammunition.
In Russia, Moscow was preparing for Tuesday’s hyper-patriotic Victory Day parade, a very powerful day on Russia’s calendar under Vladimir Putin.
Some of Russia’s large-scale military parades that typically accompany Victory Day have been abolished or reduced. Western observers say the choice was partly driven by security concerns and since Moscow lost a lot military equipment in Ukraine’s disastrous winter offensive that it doesn’t have enough spare tanks and armored personnel carriers to indicate to the general public.
In a recent break with Russia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky celebrated Victory Day on Monday as an alternative of Tuesday, announcing that he had signed a decree to vary the date of the vacation according to the practice of Western allies.
“Recalling the heroism of tens of millions of Ukrainians on this war against Nazism, we see the identical heroism within the actions of our soldiers today,” Zelensky said in a video speech.
“Unfortunately, evil has returned. Just as evil invaded our towns and villages then, so it’s now. Just as he killed our people then, he does now,” he said. “And all of the old evils that modern Russia is restoring might be defeated, just as Nazism was defeated.”
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova criticized Zelensky for changing the date, accusing him of betraying the memory of Ukrainians who fought against the Nazis.
“What’s worse than an enemy? Traitor. That is Zelensky, the embodiment of Judas within the twenty first century,” she said.
On the day of the Russian parade, Zelensky will rejoice “Europe Day” with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who will travel to Kiev on Tuesday to rejoice the 1950 French declaration that led to the creation of the body that became the EU.
With postal wires