Russia and Ukraine have traded air strikes, after a week of intensifying rhetoric in which Russia tested a new missile on Ukraine.
Russia has made close to 1,500 strikes on Ukraine since Sunday evening on about half of the country’s regions causing dozens of injuries, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
Meanwhile Ukraine’s military said it had struck a key oil depot south of Moscow, and targets in the Bryansk and Kursk border regions.
Russia’s use of the Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile on the Ukrainian city of Dnipro capped a week of escalation in the war that also saw Ukraine fire US and British missiles into Russia for the first time.
US President Joe Biden is reported to have given Ukraine permission to use longer-range Atacms missiles against targets inside Russia as a response to Moscow’s use of North Korean troops.
Kharkiv Governor Oleh Synehubov said that 23 people had been injured in a missile strike on the city of Kharkiv, where a rescue operation was currently under way.
An S-400 missile was used in the attack, he said.
Odesa’s emergencies department said 10 people had been injured in a missile attack, which damaged residential buildings, schools and a university sports hall.
Regional officials said three more people were injured in strikes on Kherson region, and one each in Zaporizhzhya and Chernihiv regions.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian military said that overnight they struck the Kaluganefteprodukt oil depot in Kaluga region southeast of Moscow with drones.
Sources told Ukrainian media the attack caused a series of explosions and a fire at the site.
There has been no comment from the Russian military on the attack, but regional governor Vladislav Shapsha said debris from drones shot down by air defences had caused “a fire on the territory of an industrial enterprise”. Eight drones in total were destroyed, he added.
Credit: bbc.com
