“Ukraine Reports “Complex Attack” by Russian Air Force as China’s Envoy Visits”

Ukraine announced what it called a “complex attack” launched by the Russian Air Force on its capital, Kiev, yesterday evening, at a time when an envoy from Beijing was expected to arrive in Kiev today, Tuesday, in the first step taken by China to find a settlement to the conflict that has been going on for more than a year.

The military administration in Kiev said that Russian forces launched a complex attack, the eighth this month, from different directions simultaneously on the Ukrainian capital, using drones, cruise missiles, and possibly ballistic missiles.

Kiev described the attack as exceptional in its intensity, stressing that it had received the maximum number of offensive missiles in the shortest period of time.

For his part, Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov confirmed that his forces shot down 6 Russian hypersonic Kinjal missiles in the new night attack targeting Kiev, which is a type of weapon that is difficult to intercept.

“Another remarkable achievement of the Ukrainian Air Force.. Last night, the defenders of our skies shot down 6 Russian Kinjal hypersonic missiles and 12 other missiles,” Reznikov wrote on Twitter.

And the “Kinzhal” missiles, which means “dagger”, are Russian ballistic “hypersonic” weapons, and President Vladimir Putin revealed them in March 2018, calling them the “ideal weapon”, and Moscow used them for the first time in its war. over Ukraine.

At night, very intensive work of air defense systems was noted in Kyiv.

Russian troops attacked the Kyiv region with cruise missiles and Geran kamikaze drones.

According to some reports, the purpose of the attack was to hunt for air defense systems of the Ukrainian Armed… pic.twitter.com/p25OqPQo2r

— Spriter (@Spriter99880) May 16, 2023

The military administration also said that the vast majority of air targets in the sky of Kiev were discovered and destroyed, confirming that the debris fell on 5 different neighborhoods in the capital, the largest of which occurred in the Solomyansky district, west of the city, where a non-residential building was burned, while parts of the missiles fell in other regions.

In turn, the Al-Jazeera correspondent reported that a series of powerful explosions occurred in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, in conjunction with the detection of flying objects in the sky of the city, and the air defenses responded to them.

Developments in Bakhmut

On another front, which is still burning in the east of the country, the Ukrainian forces announced that they had achieved victories in the city of Bakhmut and took control of 10 Russian sites in its suburbs.

On Monday, the Ukrainian army announced what it called the “first success” of its offensive since last summer, aimed at retaking the city, which Russian forces control the bulk of and are trying to control completely.

In the opposite camp, the Russian Ministry of Defense said that a “Sukhoi-27” fighter plane intercepted two planes, one French and the other German, over the Baltic Sea and prevented them from penetrating Russian airspace.

Yesterday, Monday, Russia said that it shot down for the first time the long-range “Storm Shadow” missile that Ukraine obtained from Britain, and was used to hit industrial sites in the city of Luhansk (eastern Ukraine), which is controlled by Moscow.

The Russian Ministry of Defense stated that it shot down a British-made “Storm Shadow” missile, while the Ukrainian forces targeted industrial sites in the city of Luhansk in the Donbass region.

Russia’s Tass news agency reported that Ukraine had fired two such missiles at Lugansk.

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New defense packs

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he was returning home after his European tour with new defense packages, more powerful weapons for the front and more political support.

During his visit to London and Paris, Zelensky obtained promises of new military aid, including long-range attack drones.

For his part, French President Emmanuel Macron said that his country will not grant Ukraine combat aircraft, stressing in an interview with French Channel 1 that this is in line with the principled position of Paris in support of Ukraine in its steadfastness in the face of what he called Russian aggression, and at the same time refusing to grant it the ability to target lands. Russian.

Prigozhin replies

In a related matter, the commander of the Russian paramilitary Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, denied the validity of a report by the Washington Post about offering intelligence information about the locations of Russian forces to Kiev in exchange for the Ukrainians giving up the lands surrounding the besieged city of Bakhmut in the Donetsk region.

The newspaper had quoted – what it described as a leaked US intelligence document – that Prigozhin had offered at the end of January to hand Ukraine information about the locations of Russian forces if the Ukrainian leaders withdrew their soldiers from the area around Bakhmut.

The newspaper added that two Ukrainian officials confirmed that Prigozhin extended the offer regarding Bakhmut more than once, but Kiev rejected it because Ukrainian officials do not trust him, and they thought it might be a trick. The newspaper also quoted a US official as saying that Washington had similar doubts about Prigozhin’s intention and offers.

In the same context, Prigozhin inspected the front lines, west of the city of Bakhmut. And an account loyal to the Russian private paramilitary group published a clip showing Prigozhin listening to the report of a field commander who said he was on the first lines of contact with the Ukrainian army.

Prigozhin showed the identity papers of a former American soldier and his body, which he said was an American citizen killed while fighting alongside the Ukrainian army. He vowed to hand over his body to the American side in a manner worthy of him.

Tour of the Chinese delegate

Politically, today Li Hui, the Chinese special representative for Eurasian affairs, in charge of discussing the settlement of the conflict in Ukraine, will start a visit to Kiev, according to what a high-ranking Ukrainian official told Agence France-Presse.

The agency quoted the Chinese authorities as saying that the Chinese envoy will discuss a political settlement to the Ukrainian crisis.

Li – who served as China’s ambassador to Russia between 2009 and 2019 – will be the highest-ranking Chinese diplomat to visit Ukraine since the start of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

The Chinese envoy will also visit Russia and a number of European Union countries, including Poland, France and Germany.

Last February, China published a 12-point document containing its position on the Russia-Ukraine war and its vision for resolving the conflict between them, coinciding with the first anniversary of its outbreak.