At least 26 people were killed early Friday morning in a new wave of Russian strikes on Ukrainian cities, as kyiv says the preparatory phase of its spring offensive is coming to an end.
“Preparations are coming to an end,” Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said of the major attack his country wants to launch to recapture Russian-occupied eastern and southern territories.
“The equipment has been promised, prepared and partially delivered. In a broad sense, we are ready, he said during a press conference. When God wills it, [quand il y aura] the weather and the decision of the commanders, we will do it. »
A few hours earlier, several Russian cruise missile strikes, the first on a large scale since the beginning of March, hit apartment buildings, causing the death of at least 23 people in Uman (center), two others in Dnipro ( center-east) and a 56-year-old man found under the rubble of his house in the province of Kherson (south).
“Every attack, every evil act against our country and [notre] people bring the terrorist state closer to failure and punishment,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Telegram, demanding an international “response” to Russian “terror”.
Russia, for its part, claimed to have bombarded “temporary deployment points of the reserve units of the Ukrainian armed forces” with “high-precision weapons”.
“All assigned targets have been hit,” the Russian Defense Ministry said.
In Ouman, a city of 80,000 inhabitants, journalists from Agence France-Presse (AFP) saw an apartment building ripped open by a missile, rescue workers taking out bodies and bruised people waiting for news of their relatives.
“I want to see my children, alive or dead, told AFP Dmytro, 33, a resident of the affected building. They are under the rubble. »
At least 23 people, including four children, died in this building, according to the latest report from the Ministry of the Interior.
Another Russian strike, on Dnipro, a city in central-eastern Ukraine, caused the death of “a young woman” and “a three-year-old child”, said on Telegram its mayor, Borys Filatov .
The Ukrainian army announced on Telegram that it had shot down “21 X-101/X-555 type cruise missiles out of a total of 23 as well as two drones”.
For their part, the authorities installed by Moscow announced on Friday that 9 people had been killed and 16 injured in strikes by Ukrainian forces on Donetsk, the main city controlled by the Russians in eastern Ukraine.
Expected counter-offensive
Last winter, Russia tried to plunge Ukraine into darkness and disarray, pounding its energy infrastructure, a strategy that failed, however.
The prospect of an upcoming offensive by the Ukrainian army, backed by powerful Western equipment, would bring the war into a new phase, after more than a year of high-intensity conflict.
For several months, Ukraine has claimed to want to launch a decisive assault to reverse the course of the Russian invasion and liberate nearly 20% of its occupied territory – including the Crimean peninsula.
To help him, NATO member countries and their partners have provided him with 230 battle tanks and 1,550 other armored vehicles, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced on Thursday.
And the Ukrainian Defense Minister, Oleksiï Reznikov, welcomed Friday the arrival in his country of Caesar guns from Denmark, without however specifying the number. Copenhagen had however promised last February to deliver 19 of these French-made guns.
Russia, meanwhile, has mobilized hundreds of thousands of reservists.
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2023-04-29 03:15:42
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