Russian strikes hit a residential building in Kyiv yesterday, the first attack on the capital in almost three weeks, sparking calls by Ukraine for more support from G7 leaders meeting in Germany.
Four people, including a seven-year-old girl, were taken to hospital following the early morning strikes on a neighborhood that includes a weapons factory, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.
Moscow said its forces had carried out strikes against three military centers in northern and western Ukraine, including one near the border with Poland.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The high-profile attacks, just over four months since Russia invaded its neighbor, came ahead of a week of Western diplomacy focused around the G7 and NATO summits.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is to address both gatherings, where allies including US President Joe Biden are to take stock of their support for Kyiv and of sanctions imposed on Moscow.
Biden yesterday condemned the attack on Kyiv as “more of their barbarism,” referring to Russia.
The G7 talks yesterday opened with the announcement of a ban on imports of Russian gold, but Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba called for more.
He posted on Twitter a photograph of an injured child being carried on a stretcher, who he said was “sleeping peacefully in Kyiv until a Russian cruise missile blasted her home.”
The “G7 summit must respond with more sanctions on Russia and more heavy arms for Ukraine. Russia’s sick imperialism must be defeated,” he said.
The EU this past week offered a strong show of support when it granted Ukraine candidate status, although the path to membership is long.
Russian forces sought to encircle Kyiv in the first few weeks after the Feb. 24 invasion, but yesterday’s attack was the first strike on the capital since early this month.
Klitschko said the attack was a Russian missile strike intended to “intimidate Ukrainians” ahead of the NATO summit.
It was the third time since the invasion that the northwest neighborhood had been hit.
An Agence France-Presse team said there was a fire on the top three floors of the building and its stairwell was completely destroyed.
The Russians made a strategic breakthrough on Saturday when they took the industrial hub of Severodonetsk, the scene of weeks of fierce battles that have left it largely destroyed.
Severodonetsk’s mayor said it had been “fully occupied” by Russian troops after Ukrainian forces retreated to better defend the neighboring city of Lysychansk.
Pro-Moscow separatists said Russian troops and their allies had entered Lysychansk, which faces Severodonetsk on high ground across the Donets River.
At talks on the sidelines of the G7, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and French President Emmanuel Macron said they saw an “opportunity to turn the tide” in Ukraine, a Downing Street spokesman said.
However, Johnson also cautioned Macron — who has maintained dialogue with Russian President Vladimir Putin, unlike the British leader — that “any attempt to settle the conflict now will only cause enduring instability.”
In St Petersburg on Saturday, Putin said Russia would deliver Iskander-M missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads to Belarus in the coming months, as he met with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.
NO-LIMITS PARTNERSHIP: ‘The bottom line’ is that if the US were to have a conflict with China or Russia it would likely open up a second front with the other, a US senator said Beijing and Moscow could cooperate in a conflict over Taiwan, the top US intelligence chief told the US Senate this week. “We see China and Russia, for the first time, exercising together in relation to Taiwan and recognizing that this is a place where China definitely wants Russia to be working with them, and we see no reason why they wouldn’t,” US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told a US Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing on Thursday. US Senator Mike Rounds asked Haines about such a potential scenario. He also asked US Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse
NOVEL METHODS: The PLA has adopted new approaches and recently conducted three combat readiness drills at night which included aircraft and ships, an official said Taiwan is monitoring China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) exercises for changes in their size or pattern as the nation prepares for president-elect William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20, National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) said yesterday. Tsai made the comment at a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, in response to Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wang Ting-yu’s (王定宇) questions. China continues to employ a carrot-and-stick approach, in which it applies pressure with “gray zone” tactics, while attempting to entice Taiwanese with perks, Tsai said. These actions aim to help Beijing look like it has
China’s intrusive and territorial claims in the Indo-Pacific region are “illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive,” new US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo said on Friday, adding that he would continue working with allies and partners to keep the area free and open. Paparo made the remarks at a change-of-command ceremony at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii, where he took over the command from Admiral John Aquilino. “Our world faces a complex problem set in the troubling actions of the People’s Republic of China [PRC] and its rapid buildup of forces. We must be ready to answer the PRC’s increasingly intrusive and
UNWAVERING: Paraguay remains steadfast in its support of Taiwan, but is facing growing pressure at home and abroad to switch recognition to Beijing, Pena said Paraguayan President Santiago Pena has pledged to continue enhancing cooperation with Taiwan, as he and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida expressed opposition to any unilateral change to the “status quo” in the Taiwan Strait using force, Japanese media reported on Saturday. Kishida yesterday completed a trip to France, Brazil and Paraguay, his first visit to South America since taking office in 2021. After the Japanese leader and Pena spoke for more than an hour on Friday, exchanging views on the situation in East Asia in the face of China’s increasing military pressure on Taiwan, they affirmed that “unilateral attempts to change the