The United States expressed concern Thursday about growing evidence that U.S. military equipment provided to Ukraine is used to carry out attacks inside Russian territory amid fears it could lead to a nuclear confrontation.
Moscow said Tuesday it had pushed back armed insurgents who crossed the border from Ukraine to launch attacks in Russia’s Belgorod region in the deadliest cross-border confrontation since the war began 15 months ago.
Ukraine’s war rapidly escalated and expanded into neighboring Russia on Monday as Kyiv and Moscow confirmed cross-border clashes which injured and perhaps killed several people.
Russia has warned the West of “colossal risks” if it supplies Ukraine with F-16 fighter jets. The warning came after the United States announced it would allies to deliver the military planes to Ukraine, which is preparing a counter-offensive against the ongoing Russian invasion of the country. The announcement came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was welcomed Saturday at the Group of Seven summit in Hiroshima, Japan.
The Group of Seven (G7) of the world’s leading economies gathered Friday in Japan’s city of Hiroshima, nearly wiped off the map by the world’s first atomic bomb in World War Two.
Ukraine’s capital Kyiv has been targeted by massive Russian air strikes that authorities described as “exceptional in density.” The strikes were part of broader attacks, killing several civilians “over the past 24 hours,” officials said.
Ukraine says it has recaptured ground in Bakhmut, in a rare advance after months of grinding Russian gains in the eastern city. But Moscow has denied the claims while the death toll is mounting in one of the longest and bloodiest since Russia’s invasion began more than 14 long months ago.
Ukraine has received Israeli-made radar defense systems, which have already been deployed in Kyiv, the capital, as of Monday, Israeli media reported.
Russian President Vladimir Putin used a Victory Day speech on Tuesday to warn that “a war has been unleashed” against Russia in what seemed an attempt to prepare the nation for a change in the narrative about Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. So far, the Kremlin has described its battle against Ukraine only as no more than a “special military operation” aimed at defending Russian interests but limited in scope.
With Ukraine’s counter-offensive imminent or already underway, Russia launched massive drone and missile strikes on the war-torn country with air raid sirens sounding nationwide.
The United States is planning to send Ukraine around $1.2 billion in long-term military aid to help the country defend itself against a barrage of drone, rocket, and surface-to-air missile attacks from Russia, according to U.S. officials.
The boss of Russia’s Wagner Group mercenaries says Moscow has agreed to his demands for more ammunition days after threatening to withdraw his men from the eastern city of Bakhmut. Sunday’s announcement came as Kyiv claimed to have shot down one of Russia’s most supersonic weapons following deadly Russian shelling and allegedly carried out attacks inside Russia and Russian-occupied Crimea, prompting nuclear threats by a former Russian deputy prime minister.
The leader of Russia’s Wagner Group of mercenaries says he will withdraw his troops from Bakhmut two long months after he claimed the capture of the eastern Ukrainian city was near.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has called for a war crimes tribunal to prosecute Russia for alleged atrocities. Zelensky made the appeal in the Dutch city of The Hague, where he also denied being responsible for an alleged drone strike targeting Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Moscow on Tuesday rejected a U.S. assessment of massive Russian military casualties in Ukraine but declined to give its own estimates. The United States said Monday that Russia’s military had sustained 100,000 casualties in the past five months, including tens of thousands of dead. Many soldiers are killed and injured in the battle for Bakhmut, Ukraine’s devastated eastern city that has become of symbolic importance for both sides of so far Europe’s bloodiest conflict in the 21st century.
Authorities say dozens of people have been injured in a series of Russian missile strikes at Ukrainian cities ahead of an expected counteroffensive by Ukraine’s military. The most devastating attacks hit the eastern Ukrainian town of Pavlohrad, wounding 34 people, including five children, officials said. Two women were said to be in intensive care.
Iran has denied delivering over 300,000 artillery shells and about a million rounds of ammunition to Russia for use in Moscow’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
The president of war-torn Ukraine said Wednesday he had held a meaningful dialogue with China’s leader after Beijing unveiled a peace plan to end the armed conflict between Kyiv and Moscow. Yet despite the talks between President Volodymyr Zelensky and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, there were no signs of peace returning to the frontline of an armed conflict in which hundreds of thousands of people are believed to have been killed and injured.
Soldier by soldier, trench by trench, street by street, Russian and Ukrainian forces enter their final bloody battle for Bakhmut, the symbolically important eastern Ukrainian city, in an otherwise devastating war. Ukrainian and Russian soldiers suffer massive casualties.
Kyiv says Russia has shelled a block of flats in the eastern Ukrainian city of Sloviansk, killing nine people, including a toddler. However, Russia said later that Ukrainian forces also attacked a town in Russian-controlled Donetsk, killing at least four and injuring 10 people. The clashes have overshadowed the Orthodox Easter many in Ukraine and Russia celebrated.