Ukraine Kills Five Russian Officials As NATO Gathers (Worthy News Radio)

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News

KYIV/BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – Ukraine says it has killed five high-ranking Russian officials in an area that Russia’s military has partly occupied. The strike comes as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has entered its 22nd month, and the NATO military alliance is holding talks on the challenges ahead.

Kyiv announced Wednesday that five high-ranking” Russian officials were killed in a Ukrainian strike on a building in an occupied part of the Kherson region.

The National Resistance Center of Ukraine, a branch of the Ukrainian armed forces, said the strike targeted a meeting in the village of Yuvileyne.

It added that before the strike, it had received information about the officials’ whereabouts from “underground” resistance and concerned residents.”

The announcement on social media was accompanied by pictures of a two-story building with its roof partially destroyed and many of its windows blown out.

There was no immediate response from Moscow, but the attack came after Ukraine said it had repelled 21 out of 21 overnight drone attacks.

However, Ukraine also suffered causalities, with authorities confirming that Russian shells struck homes on Tuesday, killing four people and injuring at least five in the southern town of Nikopol.

HEAVY METALS

Additionally, Marianna Budanova, the wife of Ukraine’s intelligence head, Kyrylo Budanov, was reportedly poisoned and received treatment in hospital.

Officials say she fell ill reportedly after eating food laced with “heavy metals,” the latest in a series of such cases blamed on Russia. However, Moscow has not confirmed the allegations.

And as the war enters its 22nd month, fighting has been hampered by expected tornados following Black Sea area storms that killed at least 14 people and left more than 2 million people without electricity in Russia and Ukraine.

Yet despite hundreds of thousands of people being killed or injured, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told Ukraine’s allies: “You know we have to continue. We have to keep fighting. You know Ukraine is not going to back down. Our strategic goal is our territorial integrity within international recognized borders.”

He spoke in Brussels at a foreign ministers meeting of the NATO military alliance that NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg described as historic. “Especially today when we are going to have a historic meeting, a meeting of the NATO Ukrainian council at the foreign ministerial level. And this meeting demonstrates that Ukraine is moving closer and closer to NATO. And at the meeting, we are going to discuss how we can support your path towards NATO membership,” he told the Ukrainian minister.

He added that Ukraine had pushed back the Russian black fleet, opening routes for grain experts and bolstering global food security.

And there was some excellent cultural news for Ukraine, too: After a years-long legal dispute, hundreds of Crimean artifacts stuck in a Dutch museum were returned to Ukraine. They had been stuck in limbo following Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula.

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