“Systematic strikes”. After the third Oreshnik attack, Russia threatens Kiev directly and asks foreigners and diplomats to leave
Russia urged foreign nationals, including diplomats, to leave Kiev on Monday before launching a “systematic series of strikes” against defense targets in the Ukrainian capital, a day after one of the heaviest bombardments of the city since the start of the war, Reuters reports.
Lavrov conveyed to Rubio Russia's decision to attack Kiev
The head of Russian diplomacy, Sergei Lavrov, informed US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday about Moscow's decision to launch attacks on targets in Kiev linked to the Ukrainian army, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced.
A statement published on the ministry's website states that Lavrov told Rubio on the phone that this measure was initiated “in response to the continuing terrorist attacks by the Kiev regime against the peaceful population and civilian targets on Russian territory.”
According to the statement, cited by Reuters, the Russian armed forces “begin systematic strikes on facilities located in Kiev that are used for the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as well as on the centers where the corresponding decisions are made.”
Original news: The Russian Foreign Ministry said the strikes were a reaction to what Moscow believes was a deliberate drone attack on a student dormitory in the Luhansk region, controlled by Russian forces, in eastern Ukraine. The Ukrainian military has denied Moscow's accusations and said it struck an elite drone command unit in the area.
“Under these circumstances, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation are launching a series of systematic attacks against enterprises of the Ukrainian military-industrial complex in Kiev,” the Russian ministry said in a press release.
The bombings will specifically target locations involved in the design and manufacture of drones, as well as decision centers and command posts, the ministry said.
In Kiev, rescue teams responded on Monday to deal with the aftermath of Sunday's attacks, which authorities said left two people dead and 91 others injured.
Moscow launched an Oreshnik hypersonic missile near Kiev – the third use of the potentially nuclear-capable weapon since the start of the more than four-year war.
About 300 targets in Kyiv were damaged, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced. One of these was a recently opened museum commemorating the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, which was badly damaged in Sunday's attacks.
“Currently, there is no room in the Chernobyl National Museum that has not been destroyed,” museum director Vitalina Martinovska told Reuters.
More than 70 foreign diplomats paid their respects to the victims of the Kiev attacks, visiting a badly damaged neighborhood of Lukyanivka on Monday.
France's ambassador to Ukraine, Gael Veyssiere, noted that ordinary people returned to work on Monday and went about their daily lives.
“It's a way to show resistance and I think it's extremely important that we, around the world, support this,” Veyssiere told the international news agency.
Mutual attacks
Meanwhile, Ukraine continued its own attacks against Russian infrastructure and industrial targets. In Russia's Belgorod region, one man was killed and another injured in a missile and drone attack that also cut off electricity and water supplies, local authorities said on Telegram.
Four people, including two teenagers, were killed in the Russian-controlled city of Horlivka in eastern Ukraine, its mayor, Ivan Prikhodko, wrote on Telegram on Monday, blaming a Ukrainian attack.
In Ukraine, two people were killed and 16 others injured as a result of Russian bombing, missile and drone attacks on the southern Kherson region in the last 24 hours, regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin announced on Telegram, also on Monday.
A rocket attack on the town of Derhachi, located near Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, killed two people and wounded at least 20 others, officials said.
Another 14 people were also injured, including a 6-year-old boy, in the Dnipropetrovsk region of southeastern Ukraine. Emergency services said a nine-storey apartment block had been hit by a drone strike in the town of Pavlohrad and posted photos of thick black smoke rising from the building.
Reuters notes that it could not independently verify this information. Russia and Ukraine have denied deliberately targeting civilians since Moscow invaded the neighboring country in February 2022.
US mediation efforts have so far failed to end the war. Both sides have accused each other of trying to escalate the conflict, and Ukraine plans to send reinforcements to its northern regions to counter what it sees as Russian plans for a new offensive.
Last Friday, Zelenski said diplomatic efforts to end the fighting should be revived.
