War in Ukraine | New Russian strike against a military factory near Kyiv

(Kyiv) Russia bombed a new military factory near Kyiv on Saturday, following through on its threat to step up strikes on the Ukrainian capital after it lost the flagship of its Black Sea Fleet in an attack claimed by Israel. Ukraine.

The factory, which manufactures tanks in particular, was targeted in the morning by a bombardment in Darnytsky, noted an AFP journalist. A large number of soldiers and police were present on the spot, preventing access to the complex, from which smoke was billowing.

The Russian Defense Ministry claimed that the strike had “destroyed production buildings of an arms factory in Kyiv”.

Already on Friday, a factory in the Kyiv region producing the Neptune anti-ship missiles, with which the Ukrainians say they fired at the ship Moskva in the Black Sea, had been targeted by a Russian strike.

The region of the capital had been relatively spared from the bombardments since the withdrawal of the Russian army from this area at the end of March.

But the sinking of Moskvaa 186-meter-long missile cruiser, hit by two Ukrainian missiles according to the Pentagon, angered Moscow.

“The number and scale of missile strikes on Kyiv sites will increase in response to all terrorist-type attacks and sabotage carried out on Russian territory by the nationalist regime in Kyiv,” the Russian Ministry of Security warned on Friday. Defense.

The mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, indicated on Facebook that he did not initially have information on the potential victims of the strike on Saturday morning. He once again called on residents who left the city not to return, but to stay in a “safe place”.

Russia “will not forgive”

Russia has not officially acknowledged that its flagship Black Sea Fleet was sunk by Ukrainian missiles, as claimed by Kyiv and believed by the Pentagon.

“We are perfectly aware that we will not be forgiven” the destruction of the Moskva and therefore this blow to the “imperial ambitions” of Moscow, spokeswoman for the military command of southern Ukraine, Natalia Goumenyuk, said on Friday.

The loss of Moskva is important because it “provided air cover for other vessels during their operations, including shore bombardment and landing maneuvers,” according to Odessa regional military administration spokesman Sergei Brachuk.

Kyiv fears a nuclear attack

While the war, which is in its 52^and day, does not seem to be weakening, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky ruled on Friday that “the whole world” should be “worried” about the risk that his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, cornered by his military setbacks in Ukraine, will resort to a tactical nuclear weapon .

He echoed the statements to this effect of the head of American foreign intelligence William Burns who had estimated the day before that such a threat should not be “taken lightly”.

In an interview with CNN, he said that “all countries should be worried”.

According to Mr. Zelensky, about 2,500 to 3,000 Ukrainian soldiers died during the war, while Russia would deplore according to him 19,000 to 20,000 victims. The Ukrainian president added that around 10,000 Ukrainian soldiers were injured and it is “difficult to say how many of them will survive. »

In a video message, Mr. Zelensky also renewed his appeal to Westerners to increase their military aid.

During a telephone exchange with the Chief of Staff of the American Armed Forces Mark Milley, his Ukrainian counterpart Valery Zaluzhny also insisted on the urgent need for arms and ammunition to strengthen Ukraine’s defense capabilities.

But according to the washington postRussia sent a formal complaint to the United States this week warning the US government of “unforeseeable consequences” if its military aid to Ukraine continues to increase.

In a diplomatic note, Moscow warns Washington and NATO against sending “more sensitive” weapons to Ukraine, judging that such military equipment put “fuel on the fire” and could cause “unforeseeable consequences”, reported the washington post.

In this context, Berlin announced on Friday that it was ready to release more than one billion euros in military aid for Ukraine.

The German government is thus seeking to respond to the growing criticism from the Ukrainian authorities, but also from some of its partners in the European Union, concerning its apparent lack of support in terms of armaments in Kyiv, and even its complacency with regard to Moscow.

Russian accusations

In northeastern Ukraine, 10 people were killed, including a seven-month-old infant, and 35 others injured in Russian fire on buses evacuating residents of the Kharkiv region (northeast) on Friday, according to local authorities.

Residents can only “pray that the bombs will not [leur] not fall on it, ”said AFP Serguiï Belov, 40, who narrowly escaped a bombardment in Kharkiv, pounded almost daily.

An official of the Russian National Defense Center, Mikhail Mizintsev, said in a statement that the authorities in Kyiv were planning a “new monstrous provocation” to accuse the Russian armed forces of having committed war crimes.

According to him, Ukrainian troops are preparing to hit civilians gathered at Lozova station with a Tochka-U missile to flee the fighting in the Kharkiv region.

Moscow has repeatedly blamed Kyiv for deadly strikes against Ukrainian civilians such as in Kramatorsk or Mariupol.

Strikes in the Donbass

In the largest region of Donbass, that of Donetsk, where “fighting is taking place on the entire front line”, three people were killed and seven injured, the Ukrainian presidency said on Friday.

The other region of this mining basin, that of Luhansk, was the scene of 24 bombings which left two dead and two injured, according to the same source.

On Friday night, the mayor of the city of Aleksandria, about 300 km southeast of Kyiv, posted on Facebook that a Russian missile had hit his city’s airport. He said that the rescue teams were at work but without immediately claiming any victims.

More than five million people have fled Ukraine since February 24, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

“War is everywhere,” lamented Friday on Rai, Italian public radio and television, Pope Francis, who had unsuccessfully asked for an Easter truce in Ukraine.