The latest wave of Russian missile strikes and shelling sowed death and destruction in eastern and southern Ukraine on Friday, killing at least 10 civilians and injuring 20 others, officials said.
Five people died in Kostiantynivka, east of the embattled city of Bakhmut in the Donetsk province when a Russian S-300 anti-aircraft missile struck a “point of invincibility” — an aid station where people could warm up and charge their phones.
Donetsk Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said the victims, among them three women, were all refugees.
Rockets, missiles and artillery shells also rained down on the Sumy region overnight, damaging an office building, apartment buildings and a school.
Two people were killed and nine were wounded in the town of Bilopillia, local officials confirmed.
In southern Ukraine, Russian shelling killed one person in Kherson, which has been under near-constant fire since its liberation last fall.
The deadly attack came less than 24 hours after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the beleaguered city while touring some of the hardest-hit areas of the country.
In Bakhmut, which has seen the bloodiest battles of the war, the commander of Kyiv’s ground forces said Thursday that Russia’s assault appeared to be waning and Ukrainian forces were poised to turn the tide “very soon.”
For now, Ukrainian soldiers maintained their positions and fought to prevent the enemy from advancing from northern and southern directions.
Ukraine’s military is gearing up for a spring counteroffensive, which is expected to involve modern Western weapons, including Leopard 2 and Abrams tanks.
Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s former president and now deputy head of the country’s Security Council chaired by President Vladimir Putin, crowed that Moscow’s forces were ready to repel a counterattack — and darkly hinted that any attempt to seize the illegally annexed Crimean peninsula could lead to a nuclear attack.
“An attempt to split part of the state away means an encroachment at the very existence of the state,” he said.
“Quite obviously, it warrants the use of any weapons. I hope our ‘friends’ across the ocean realize that.”
Medvedev also revealed that Russia is looking to create demilitarized buffer zones it calls “sanitary cordons” stretching for up to 60 miles around Russian-held areas within Ukraine to shield them from short- and medium-range weapons.
If such buffer zones cannot be set up, Russian forces might push even deeper into Ukraine and grab a piece of territory stretching to the Polish border, the ex-president warned.
“Nothing can be ruled out here. If you need to get to Kyiv, then you need to go to Kyiv, if you need to get to Lviv, then you need to go to Lviv in order to destroy this infection,” the Kremlin hardliner pronounced.
With Post wires
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