Image: Reuters Berita 24 English - Officials in Kyiv said that a Russian missile attack in eastern Ukraine killed 22 civilians and set a pas...
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| Image: Reuters |
Berita 24 English - Officials in Kyiv said that a Russian missile attack in eastern Ukraine killed 22 civilians and set a passenger train on fire. The attacks happened north of the capital as Ukraine celebrated its Independence Day under heavy shelling.
Before Ukraine's 31st anniversary of independence from Moscow-controlled Soviet rule on Wednesday, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned of the risk of "repugnant Russian provocations," so public celebrations were cancelled.
On the same day as the holiday, it had been six months since Russian forces invaded Ukraine and started the worst war in Europe since World War II.
Zelenskiy said on video to the UN Security Council that rockets hit a train in the small town of Chaplyne, which is about 90 miles west of Russian-occupied Donetsk in eastern Ukraine and about 145 km away.
"Chaplyne is what hurts us right now. As of right now, 22 people have died, "He said this in a video message later in the evening and added that Ukraine would hold Russia accountable for everything it had done.
Kyrylo Tymoshenko, who worked for Zelenskiy, later said that Russian forces had fired two shells at Chaplyne.
In the first attack, a rocket hit a boy's house and killed him. In the second attack, rockets hit the train station and set fire to five train cars, killing 21 people, he said in a statement.
When asked for a comment, the Russian Ministry of Defense did not answer right away. Russia says it is not aiming at civilians.
"Russia's missile attack on a train station in Ukraine that was full of civilians fits a pattern of terrible things it has done. We will keep standing with Ukraine and holding Russian officials accountable, along with our partners from all over the world "Antony Blinken, who is the U.S. Secretary of State, said this on Twitter.
During a rocket attack on the Vyshgorod region just north of Kyiv, there were also six explosions, but no one was hurt, a regional official named Olexiy Kuleba said.
"There were two impacts. Nobody was hurt or killed among the civilians. There were no fires, and no homes or infrastructure were destroyed "Thursday morning, Kuleba wrote on the Telegram channel. "The other explosions that people in the area heard were our air defences at work," he said.
Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to the president of Ukraine, said that Russia's military stayed away from Kyiv during the Ukrainian holiday and instead fired artillery at frontline towns like Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, Nikopol, and Dnipro.
NO PUBLIC CELEBRATIONS
Separately, officials said that Kiev sent information to international legal bodies about Russian plans, revealed by U.N. officials on Tuesday, to try captured Ukrainian fighters from the Azov Regiment in Mariupol.
In April, Russian troops took over the port city after weeks of heavy shelling as they surrounded Ukrainian fighters at the Azovstal steel plant.
Arestovych, an adviser to the president, said that Zelenskiy made it clear that if the trials went ahead, Kyiv would "never, ever" talk about peace talks with Moscow.
Ned Price, a spokesman for the U.S. Secretary of State, said that the illegal process would be a "mockery of justice."
In August 1991, Ukraine broke away from the Soviet Union, which was falling apart at the time. In December of that year, its people voted overwhelmingly in favour of independence in a referendum.
The public holiday on August 24 was cancelled, but many Ukrainians still wore embroidered shirts, which are a part of the national dress.
At least seven times during the day, air raid sirens went off in the capital city of Kyiv, but there were no attacks.
Zelenskiy and his wife, Olena Zelenska, went to a service in Kyiv's St. Sophia cathedral, which was built in the 11th century, and laid flowers at a memorial for soldiers who had died.
The 44-year-old leader said Ukraine would take back the Crimean peninsula and parts of eastern Ukraine that Russia took over in 2014.
MISSILE STRIKES FAR FROM FRONT LINES
Ukrainian forces shot down a Russian drone in the Vinnytsia region, and Russian missiles landed in the Khmelnytskyi region, according to regional authorities. Both areas are west of Kyiv and hundreds of kilometres from the front lines.
There were no reports of damage or deaths, and Reuters could not confirm the reports.
Russia has said over and over that its forces are not aiming at civilians. Sergei Shoigu, the Russian Defense Minister, told a meeting in Uzbekistan that Russia had slowed down what it calls a "special military operation" in Ukraine on purpose so that no civilians would be hurt.
At a U.N. Security Council meeting on Wednesday, Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said again that Moscow's actions in Ukraine were meant to "denazify and demilitarise" the country to get rid of "obvious" threats to Russia's security.
Ukraine and the West have said that Moscow's position is just an empty excuse for an imperialist war to take over.
INCREASING WESTERN SUPPORT
In what he called the "biggest chunk of security assistance to date," U.S. President Joe Biden gave Ukraine nearly $3 billion for weapons and equipment. Under Biden's leadership, the US has given Ukraine more than $13.5 billion in military aid.
After its troops were pushed back from Kyiv in the first weeks of the war, Russia hasn't made many gains in the last few months.
Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine's military intelligence, said on Wednesday that Russia's offensive was slowing down because its troops had low morale and were tired, and because Moscow's resources were "exhausted."
Russian forces have taken over parts of the south, including the coasts of the Black Sea, the Sea of Azov, and large parts of the eastern Donbas region, which is made up of the provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk.
Thousands of civilians have died in the war, and more than a third of Ukraine's 41 million people have been forced to leave their homes. Cities are in ruins, and the war has shook the world economy, causing food shortages and driving up the price of energy.
