RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE
Russia conducts major strikes on key Ukrainian military-industrial sites
Russia has announced that its forces have conducted a range of missile strikes targeting Ukraine’s military-industrial base. Kiev has confirmed the attacks, admitting that its air defenses failed to intercept most of the projectiles.
In a statement on Monday, the Russian Defense Ministry said it had carried out “a group strike” using high-precision sea- and air-based weapons, including Kinzhal hypersonic missiles. The barrage, which took place in the morning, targeted military-industrial facilities, officials said, without providing details on the results of the attack.
According to the Ukrainian Air Force, the attack targeted various types of facilities in Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk and Khmelnitsky regions as well as in the parts of Zaporozhye region controlled by Kiev.
Authorities in the Khmelnitsky region reported six explosions, adding that one attack targeted an unspecified infrastructure facility. Local officials said that at least two people had been killed in the strikes.
Officials in Kharkov said that at least four rocket strikes had damaged an unnamed business and an educational institution, claiming there had been several casualties, including an elderly woman.
The Ukrainian Air Force said that it had managed to shoot down only 18 out of 51 missiles it claims Russia had launched. It admitted failure to intercept all four Kinzhal, six Iskander-M, and eight X-22 missiles. Yury Ignat, the spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force, explained that Russia had launched a large number of ballistic rockets that he said could only be shot down by US-made Patriots or other similarly advanced air defense systems.
The latest strike wave comes after The New York Times reported on Saturday that White House and Pentagon officials had warned that they would be unable to provide Ukraine with Patriot missiles, as US Republicans continue to block president Joe Biden’s supplemental funding request, which includes a possible $60 billion for Kiev. The GOP has repeatedly demanded that the Biden administration do more to enhance US border security as a prerequisite for a potential deal.
Russia has ramped up its airstrikes on Ukraine’s military targets and critical infrastructure in the wake of what it called “terrorist attacks” on Belgorod and Donetsk. The strikes killed dozens of civilians, including several children, prompting Russian President Vladimir Putin to vow retaliation, while insisting that Moscow’s own attacks would not target civilians.
WESTERN PERSPECTIVE
Four killed in combined Russian air strike on Ukraine
Russia sent dozens of missiles across Ukraine early on Monday, killing at least four civilians and hitting residential areas and commercial sites in its latest combined air attack, Ukrainian authorities said.
Two people were killed in the western Khmelnytskyi region, local officials reported, where critical infrastructure had also been struck.
In Kryvyi Rih, a 62-year-old was killed and a shopping centre and scores of private homes and apartment buildings damaged after nine Russian missiles hit the south central city, said Oleksandr Vilkul, the mayor.
"The mad enemy once again struck civilians," regional governor Serhiy Lysak wrote on the Telegram messaging app. "Directed missiles at people."
Ukraine's National Police said a total of 38 people had been wounded across the country.
Russia said it hit military-industrial targets in Ukraine from sea and air on Monday.
"This morning, a multiple attack was carried out with high-precision, long-range, sea and air-based weapons, including the Kinzhal hypersonic missile system, on facilities of the military-industrial complex of Ukraine," the defence ministry said in a daily dispatch.
Ukraine said its air defences had destroyed 18 out of 51 missiles, a much lower shoot-down rate than normal, which Kyiv attributed to the large number of ballistic missiles fired by Russia which are more difficult to intercept.
"On the one hand, you have lots of missiles not shot down," air force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat said on Ukrainian television.
"The explanation is simple: they were flying on a ballistic trajectory, and into the regions where we can't shoot them down."
All eight drones launched by Russia were also shot down.
The strikes came amid a cold snap sweeping Ukraine, with Vilkul, the Kryvyi Rih mayor, also reporting that 15,000 residents were without power and that local trams and trolleybuses were not running.
In the eastern city of Kharkiv, an industrial site and educational facility were damaged after at least four missile strikes, Governor Oleh Synehubov said.
A 63-year-old woman was killed in a strike on a town south of Kharkiv, he added.
Five people were also wounded in the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, where governor Yuriy Malashko said residential areas had been struck.
"Not a single military target," he wrote on Telegram.
Russia in recent weeks has resumed a campaign of regular air strikes on Ukrainian population centres far behind the lines of its nearly two-year-old full-scale invasion.
RT/Reuters