At least 37 people have been killed in a Russian attack on the Bucha district, close to the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv.
Tymur Tkachenko, head of the local regional military administration, said at least 50 residential buildings had been damaged in the attack on Saturday, which also sparked a large-scale fire that spread to homes and a restaurant.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said a warehouse had been struck in the village of Myla “followed by a detonation”.
He did not give details on the site, but wrote in the same message that criminal proceedings had been opened on charges of official negligence.
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“There are regulations in place – ammunition cannot be stored near homes or other residential areas,” he said.
The Ukrainian leader wrote that a care home for elderly people and people with disabilities and residential buildings were damaged.
“More than 370 people have already been evacuated, and the evacuation is ongoing,” he said.
In a statement, Russia’s ministry of defence said it had hit a warehouse in Myla storing components and launch boosters for long-range drones.
It also said it had attacked the ports of Mykolaiv and Izmail, as well as a logistics centre and warehouse facilities storing parts for Ukraine’s Flamingo cruise missiles in the Kyiv region.
Almost constant air raids in Kyiv have now reached their third day, choking the economy in the Ukrainian capital and severely disrupting civilian life.
Elsewhere, Russian attacks across Ukraine’s southern Kherson region on Saturday killed two people and wounded 27 more, a local official said.
Oleksandr Prokudin, head of the region administration, said attacks had damaged homes and apartment blocks, and that one child was among the injured.
Meanwhile, Ukraine has received intelligence that Russia is preparing for a possible new ground offensive towards Kyiv as well as Chernihiv in the nation’s far north, a top official said.
There are no concrete dates or signs that Russian striking units are gathering near Ukraine’s northern borders. However, certain assessments are being made by Moscow’s military leadership, according to Pavlo Palisa, deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential office.
“Our priority is not to allow Russians to launch any offensive actions at all,” Palisa told reporters on Friday.
His comments came days after CIA director John Ratcliffe made a surprise trip to Moscow for meetings with officials there. It was the first known visit by a CIA chief in the Russian capital since Bill Burns travelled to the country in late 2021, in an ultimately failed effort to dissuade President Vladimir Putin from starting a full-scale war against Ukraine.
Putin was set to meet on Saturday with Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko. Kremlin forces used Belarus as a staging ground for their February 2022 ground invasion of Ukraine. – PA, Bloomberg
