Kiev lays the curse on Russia: Russian-American missile attacks on Kiev’s Belgorod province have caused apartment buildings in the city of Kharkiv
While waiting for Congress to pass a budget and potentially approve more money for Ukraine’s fight, the U.S. will be looking to allies to keep bridging the gap.
Western support for Ukraine’s defense is under scrutiny, and its allies have sought to assure it that they are still committed to it. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and France’s new foreign minister also traveled to Kyiv in the new year.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk on Monday was the latest foreign leader to visit Ukraine and announce a new aid package that includes a loan to buy larger weapons and a commitment to find ways to manufacture them together.
The region has come under frequent attacks from Ukraine in recent months, including a rocket attack in December that killed more than two dozen people.
Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s top diplomat, claimed that Ukrainian forces have been “a complete failure” on the battlefield and are “incapable” of defeating Russia.
There was little to no chance of an end to the war any time soon. Russia’s foreign minister defied the United States and other Ukraine supporters at a U.N. meeting Monday, ruling out any peace plan they support.
While the front line has only barely budged, the attacks keep Ukrainians on edge. Both sides’ inability to deliver a knockout punch on the battlefield has pushed the fighting toward trench and artillery warfare. The analysts say the Kremlin launched a winter air campaign at the end of last year.
In the winter months, the area around the border with Russia has been frequently hit by long-range strikes.
The missiles damaged several buildings in Kharkiv and shattered a thousand apartment windows in the cold weather.
KYIV, Ukraine — Russian missiles targeted Ukraine’s two biggest cities on Tuesday morning, damaging apartment buildings and killing at least six people after Moscow shunned any deal to end the almost two-year war that is backed by Kyiv and its Western allies.
According to Russia’s Defense Ministry, the Il-76 transport plane was carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners to the prisoner exchange when it crashed in the Belgorod region near Ukraine’s border just after 11:00 a.m. local time (3:00 a.m. EST) Wednesday, due to a “terrorist act.”
Some Ukrainian authorities, including Dmytro Lubinets, the ombudsman for human rights, who is involved in prisoner exchanges, suggested the Russian reports were propaganda aimed at destabilizing Ukrainian society.
Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of the Russian state RT news service and a key Kremlin propagandist, later published a list of Ukrainian prisoners she insisted had been killed in the crash. The list’s authenticity could not be verified.
A representative of Ukraine’s main intelligence directorate, Andriy Yusov, told Radio Liberty that a prisoner exchange planned for Wednesday “is not taking place at the moment.”
The Ukrainska Pravda media outlet in Ukraine initially reported that Ukrainian military sources confirmed downing a Russian military transport using Soviet-era S-300 anti-aircraft missiles. The newspaper later updated the story to say the shoot-down had not been confirmed by other sources.
Video posted to a pro-Kremlin social media channel appeared to capture the aircraft’s final moments — descending at a sharp incline toward the earth before exploding in a massive fireball.
The ministry said the Ukrainian leadership had shown its true face by committing the terrorist act and ignored the lives of its own citizens.
“The Ukrainian leadership perfectly knew that, according to established practices, Ukrainian servicemen would be transported by military transport aircraft to the Belgorod airfield for an exchange,” said the ministry in a statement.
