Latest news with #civilianTargets
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Six people likely trapped under rubble in Kharkiv after Russian attack
Six people are most likely trapped under the rubble of an industrial facility in Kharkiv that was hit by a Russian attack earlier in the day, the Kharkiv Oblast Prosecutor's Office reported. The rescue operation was ongoing as of 1:45 p.m. on June 7, reads the report. Contact with those trapped has been lost, the prosecutors added. Russian forces attacked Kharkiv with drones, missiles, and KAB guided bombs overnight on June 7, killing at least three people and injuring 22, according to Governor Oleh Syniehubov. Syniehubov said that drones had struck civilian targets across the city, including a 9-story residential building, a local enterprise, a home, and other facilities. Two children were injured in the attack, including a 1-month-old baby, Syniehubov said. At least 40 explosions were recorded across the city amid the attack, local media reported. Mayor Ihor Terekhov reported that the Osnovyanskyi and Kyiv districts of the city suffered strikes. According to Terekhov, 48 Shahed drones, two missiles, and four guided aerial bombs were launched toward the city. Located along the front line, Kharkiv Oblast in Ukraine's northeast is a regular target of Russian missile, drone, and glide bomb attacks from across the border. Read also: Ukraine war latest: Russia hits Ukraine with large-scale attack days after Operation Spiderweb; Ukraine targets Russian air bases in 'preemptive strike' We've been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
Al Arabiya
6 days ago
- General
- Al Arabiya
Russia says the West is involved in Ukraine's attacks on civilian targets
Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday that the West was involved, both directly and indirectly, in Ukrainian 'terrorist attacks' against civilian targets in Russia. US President Donald Trump's Ukraine envoy said the risk of escalation from the war in Ukraine was 'going way up' after Ukrainian forces used drones to strike nuclear-capable bombers at several airbases deep inside Russia. Russia's State Investigative Committee on Tuesday accused Ukraine of carrying out 'acts of terrorism' by blowing up two railway bridges in Russia over the weekend. The blowing up of a highway bridge over a passenger train in Bryansk left at least seven people dead and dozens injured, including two children. Asked if Russia thought the West was involved in the attacks over recent days, Zakharova said the West supplied weapons, gave target coordinates, refused to condemn such attacks and actively incited such attacks. 'These are several areas that prove the fact of the involvement, both direct and indirect, and the guilt of the West for the terrorist attacks that are taking place against civilians and civilian infrastructure facilities by the Kyiv regime,' Zakharova said. Ukraine has not commented on the weekend bridge attacks.
Yahoo
25-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump silence as Russia steps up attacks on Ukraine highlights diplomatic failure
The noises in Kyiv in the early hours of Sunday morning went like this. First was the staccato sound of the air defences booming on the edge of the city. As those guns stopped, the sound of drone motors approaching was audible, getting quickly louder before the briefest moment of silence and then a sudden detonation. But, after two days of heavy Russian air raids that hit civilian buildings across Ukraine, the response has been silence from Donald Trump. In the space of just over a week, since the first direct talks between Russia and Ukraine since March 2022 broke up inconclusively with no sign of a ceasefire, the failure of his intervention has become clear. Boasting before his inauguration as US president that he could end the war in 24 hours, he has instead emboldened the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, by declining to impose pressure for an immediate ceasefire – backed by Europe – or meaningful sanctions. Since Trump's two-hour call with Putin last Monday, the Russian leader has made clear his disdain even as Trump's own Defense Intelligence Agency predicted that Moscow would continue fighting through this year. In the aftermath of the call, Putin has ordered the creation of a 'security buffer zone' along Ukraine's eastern border. Strikes on civilian targets only seem to be accelerating, culminating in two straight days of air raids, including Saturday night's – the heaviest aerial bombardment of the war so far, with almost 300 drones and nearly 70 missiles. Related: 'US silence encourages Putin' says Zelenskyy after largest Russian attack to date – Ukraine war live Ukrainian and western officials anticipate that Russia will once again attempt a large-scale offensive during the summer, even if they are highly sceptical that it will be effective given Moscow's punishing losses. The reality is that with deadlock on the ground, the escalating long-range drone war on both sides is becoming ever more significant, even if it cannot conquer territory. As it has become ever larger, with Russian and Ukrainian factories turning out thousands of new drones, it has become more sophisticated with Moscow's employment of big numbers of decoys and systems designed to fool air defence systems. While Ukraine has targeted bases and factories, including those producing fibre optic cable for a new generation of small combat zones, the purpose on Russia's side appears aimed solely at undermining morale on the home front. In recent days, drones and missiles have hit apartment blocks, homes and a student dormitory. On Sunday the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, angrily denounced 'the silence of America … encouraging Putin'. His words raised a more critical question: whether Trump, as he has long threatened, has already walked away from his perfunctory efforts to end the war. When a US official did stir themselves to condemn the strikes, what was missing – any suggestion that Putin and Moscow were responsible- was as significant as what was said. Posting on X, Trump's envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, condemned the attacks under an image of fires in the Ukrainian capital. 'This is Kyiv,' he wrote. 'The indiscriminate killing of women and children at night in their homes is a clear violation of the 1977 Geneva Peace Protocols designed to protect innocents. These attacks are shameful. Stop the killing. Ceasefire now.' Phillips O'Brien, a professor of strategic studies at the University of St Andrews, has suggested in his newsletter on the war that, far from the recent talks heralding any hopes of a breakthrough, they had in fact removed any pretence that the US-mediated talks were going anywhere. 'On Monday the great charade we have been seeing for months came to an end,' wrote O'Brien this weekend. 'The charade was that Trump was trying to negotiate a deal between Ukraine and Russia that would work for both states. The reality was always that Trump was trying to bludgeon Ukraine into making major concessions to Russia and help Putin achieve many of his strategic goals.' If Trump has already disengaged, that raises a number of difficult questions for Kyiv: will the US continue supplying military aid in sufficient quantities? More crucially, can Europe step into the diplomatic and military void provoked by that disengagement? What is clear to Ukrainians, despite the several weeks of headlines over the potential for a breakthrough in peace talks, is that without pressure from Washington, or hugely accelerated aid from Europe, the war will grind on. And there will be more nights like Saturday's in their future.
