WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Russia hits Ukraine regions, Zelenskiy says Su-25 bomber downed

Russian attacks on Ukraine's Kharkiv and Dnipro regions and the Black Sea port city of Odesa killed at least two civilians, set a food factory ablaze and damaged other infrastructure, homes and commercial buildings on Saturday, regional officials said.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russia had used eight missiles of various kinds and nearly 70 guided aerial bombs against communities and frontline positions during the day, after Ukraine's air force downed 13 Shahed drones that targeted the Kharkiv and Dnipro regions overnight.

Zelenskiy said Moscow had no desire for peace. "Russia can only be forced to leave Ukraine alone," he said in his nightly video address. A world peace summit taking place in Switzerland in June - without Russia - "must succeed", he said.

He said Ukraine's 110th mechanised brigade brought down a Russian Su-25 fighter-bomber over the eastern Donetsk region, one of four areas of Ukraine Moscow says it has annexed.

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu saidon Friday Moscow had taken control of 547 sq km (211 sq miles) of the territories this year.

Oleh Syniehubov, governor of Kharkiv region, said Russian shelling killed a 49-year-old man on the street near his home in the village of Slobozhanske. An 82-year-old woman was killed and two men were injured in overnight shelling in Kharkiv city, he wrote on the Telegram app.

A Russian missile attack set fire to a business premises in an industrial district of Kharkiv city, injuring six employees, he added. Local prosecutors identified it as a food factory.

In the south, Odesa regional governor Oleh Kiper said three people had been injured in the city by a missile strike.

Reuters could not immediately verify the reports of casualties and damage.

An air force commander said air defences brought down all 13 of the attack drones overnight, but Syniehubov said falling debris injured four people and sparked a fire in an office building.

In the industrial Dnipropetrovsk region, shelling injured a 57-year-old woman and damaged infrastructure in Nikopol, near the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, and two were wounded in another overnight attack, regional governor Serhiy Lysak said.

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Russia shoots down four US-made long-range missiles – MOD

Russian air defenses have shot down four US-manufactured long-range missiles over Crimea, according to the Defense Ministry in Moscow.

On Saturday night, Kiev’s forces attempted “to carry out a terrorist attack” against the Russian peninsula using surface-to-surface Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) supplied by Washington, the ministry said in a post on Telegram. The strike was intercepted, it added.

On Tuesday, the Defense Ministry claimed that six ATACMS projectiles had been downed in a single day, without specifying the location of the strikes. In total, 15 such missiles have been intercepted in the past seven days, Moscow reported on Saturday.

In late April, US officials confirmed earlier media reports that the Pentagon had secretly shipped an unspecified number of long-range missiles to Ukraine as part of an arms package announced by President Joe Biden in mid-March.

The “goal” of supplying Kiev with ATACMS was to put more pressure on Crimea and allow Ukrainian forces to target the peninsula “more effectively,” the New York Times reported at a time, citing an unnamed Pentagon official.

Moscow said the provision of long-range missiles would only spell “more problems” for Kiev. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov insisted that the use of ATACMS would not impact the outcome of the conflict, or prevent Russia from achieving its security goals.

On Friday, Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova warned that any Western-backed Ukrainian attack against the Russian peninsula, or the Crimean Bridge which connects it to the Krasnodar Region, would spark a forceful response.

“I would like to again warn Washington, London, Brussels, that any aggressive actions against Crimea are not only doomed to failure, but will also be met with a retaliatory blow,”she said during a media briefing.

Reuters/RT