The Kremlin said Friday that the Ukraine War was “existential” for Russia, after he launched a wave of retaliation drones and missile attacks that killed at least three in kyiv.
AFP The journalists heard that Air Raid’s sirens and explosions extend over the capital throughout the night while the Ukrainian air defense batteries intercepted waves of Russian drones and missiles.
kyiv announced that Russia had triggered 45 missiles and 407 drones in the flood, after Russian President Vladimir Putin promised reprisals for a bold Ukrainian attack on several Russian air bases.
President Volodymyr Zelensky, in response, urged the allies to “decisively” increase the pressure on Russia to stop the war, which has left tens of thousands dead for more than three years of struggle.
“We listened to a drone, we heard it get close, and then there was an explosion,” Ksenia said, a kyiv resident, he said AFP Outside a multi -story housing block that stayed with a carbonized hole and open.
“Our windows and window panels were exploited, but we left with a slight shock,” he added, standing in a patio full of broken glass and rubble.
The Kremlin issued its three -year invasion on Friday as nothing less than a battle for the “future” of Russia.
“For us it is an existential issue, a problem about our national interest, security, about our future and the future of our children, of our country,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, to journalists, who responded to the comparison of US president Donald Trump of Moscow and kyiv to the children to fight.
‘Act decisively’
Zelensky said that at least three people had been killed in the capital, and that Russia had signed up for nine regions of Ukraine, including Lviv and Volyn in the West, who border the EU and the member of NATO Poland.
“If someone does not exert pressure and gives war more time to bring lives, they are accomplices and responsible. We need to act decisively,” Zelensky wrote on social networks.
Mortal attacks have intensified in recent weeks, even when the two parties have conversations aimed at finishing the conflict caused by Russia’s invasion in February 2022.
The cities and villages have been destroyed throughout the east of Ukraine and millions forced to flee their homes, and Russia’s forces control around a fifth of the territory of Ukraine.
Russian aerial assaults have increased in recent weeks as concerns are built on the tense air defense capacity of Ukraine.
The Ministry of Defense in Moscow said their forces had launched the attack of “mass” missiles and drones in “response” to the recent kyiv attacks in its territory.
Putin earlier this week told Trump that Moscow would retaliate on the Ukrainian attack on Sunday in which drones damaged military airplanes with nuclear capacity in Russian air bases, including thousands of kilometers behind the first line of Siberia.
The 18 -month -old operation in the planning, saw kyiv from smuggling more than 100 small drones in Russia, park them near the Russian air bases and unleash them in a coordinated attack.
Retaliation
Despite several recent rounds of meetings between the Ukrainian and Russian delegations, Putin has repeatedly rejected a fire, and has issued a series of radical demands on Ukraine if he wants to stop fighting.
They completely include the troops of four regions claimed by Russia, but that their army does not completely control, the end of Western military support and the prohibition that Ukraine joins NATO.
The Russian attack during the night left multiple fires in several districts of the capital.
First three to respond to the state emergency service were killed while dealing with a previous strike, said Interior Minister Igor Klymenko.
“They were working under fire to help people,” he said, adding that nine more were injured and that “doctors are fighting for their lives.”
The mayor of kyiv said previously that four were killed in the capital, but then reviewed that toll.
Several attacks also arrived in the city of Lutsk and the Ternopil region in western Ukraine.
At least 49 people were injured in total, said Zelensky.
Meanwhile, Moscow said that the Ukrainian strikes during the night in Russia wounded three people in the western region of Tula, while kyiv said he had organized successful attacks in two aerial fields in the Russian territory.
The images shared on social networks showed a great fire and smoke in the air in an oil installation that serves a military site in the Russia Saratov region, which has often been directed.
The Russian Ministry of Defense said it demolished 174 Ukrainian drones during the night. Ten fallen drones were heading to the Russian capital, according to the mayor of Moscow, Sergei Sobyanin.
