Although the Russian leader made a cryptic threat about military escalation, he did not give any details as to what new targets might be. The threat came just days after the United States announced that it would provide $700 million in security assistance to Ukraine. This includes four medium-range precision-guided rocket systems as well as helicopters and Javelin anti-tank system, radars, tactical vehicles, and other equipment.
According to military analysts, Russia wants to take over Ukraine’s eastern industrial Donbas, where Russia-backed separatists are fighting the Ukrainian government since 2014. This was before any U.S. weapons could turn the tide. According to the Pentagon, it will take at most three weeks for the U.S. weapons to reach the battlefield.
The missiles that were aimed at Kiev’s capital struck a train repair shop. A Ukrainian official stated that Russian airstrikes had also struck the eastern city Druzhkivka, causing destruction of buildings and at least one death. Residents reported hearing the sound of missile strikes and seeing rubble and glass fall around them.
Svitlana Romashkina stated, “It was like in horror movies.”
According to the Russian Defense Ministry, precision missiles launched from air were used to destroy Ukrainian workshops in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine.
The General Staff of Ukraine stated that Russian forces had fired five X-22 cruise-missiles from the Caspian Sea towards Kyiv. One was also destroyed by air defenses. The missiles also hit “infrastructure installations”, but Ukraine claimed there were no casualties.
Energoatom, a nuclear plant operator, reported that a cruise missile flew close to the Pivdennoukrainsk nuclear plant, which is 350 km (220 miles) south. It was apparently on its way to Kyiv. If even one missile fragment landed on the facility, it warned of a nuclear disaster.
According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the missiles that hit Kyiv destroyed T72 tanks from Eastern European countries as well as other armored vehicles.
The railway authority of Ukraine led reporters through a tour of an eastern Kyiv rail car repair facility that was damaged by four missiles. According to the authority, no military equipment was stored at the site and Associated Press reporters did not see any remnants of it in the destroyed building.
“There weren’t tanks and you can witness this,” Serhiy Lechenko, an advisor to the Ukrainian president, stated.
A government advisor said that the attack on military infrastructure was also being made. AP reporters witnessed a burning building in the vicinity of the demolished rail car plant. Two residents in the area claimed that the warehouse-like structure that emitted smoke was part of a tank repair facility. An AP reporter was told by police that they had blocked access to the location because military officials had prohibited the taking of photographs there.
