Editor-DN
The fighting is at a critical juncture in the two-and-a-half-year-old conflict.
Kharkiv, Ukraine:
At least 47 people, including five children, were injured after Russian missiles struck a shopping mall and events complex in the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Sunday, officials said.
Earlier in the day, Russia said Kiev had carried out the biggest drone strike against it since the start of the full-scale war, targeting power plants and an oil refinery, while Moscow’s forces Further advances have been made towards an important town in eastern Ukraine.
The Kharkiv attack prompted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to again demand that allies allow Kiev to fire Western-supplied missiles into enemy territory and reduce the military threat posed by Russia.
The fighting is at a critical juncture in the two-and-a-half-year-old conflict. Russia is stepping up its offensive in eastern Ukraine as it tries to expel Ukrainian forces that suddenly entered its western border on August 6.
Last week, Russia launched the largest airstrikes of the war in Ukraine, hitting targets including energy facilities.
Moscow, which denies targeting civilians, says damaging Ukraine’s energy system is a legitimate military target. Its drone and missile barrages have killed thousands of civilians since the conflict began in February 2022.
Ukraine, with a rapidly expanding domestic drone industry, has stepped up its attacks on Russian energy, military and transport infrastructure.
Kiev is also pressing the US and other allies to authorize the use of more powerful Western-supplied weapons to inflict more damage inside Russia and to target Moscow’s ability to attack Ukraine.
“All the necessary forces of the world must be brought to bear to stop this terrorism,” Zelensky said on his Telegram channel in response to the Kharkiv attack, which Ukrainian officials said involved at least 10 missiles.
“It doesn’t require extraordinary forces, but it does require a lot of courage on the part of leaders — the courage to give Ukraine what it needs to defend itself.”
In Kharkiv, aid workers and volunteers carried injured civilians to ambulances outside a shopping complex. Broken glass and debris littered the ground and people ran to the metro station for safety.
Earlier, Russian officials said air defense units had destroyed 158 drones launched by Ukraine overnight, and that the debris had hit a Moscow oil refinery and the Konakovo power station in the neighboring Tor region. A fire broke out.
Kiev has not yet commented on the drone barrage. Russia rarely discloses the full extent of damage caused by Ukraine airstrikes.
Russia’s Nuclear Doctrine
In the past week alone, Russia has used 160 missiles, 780 guided aerial bombs and 400 attack drones against cities and troops across Ukraine, Zelinsky said.
They called for a “decision on Russia’s long-range strikes on missile launch sites, destruction of Russian military supplies, joint downing of missiles and drones” from Telegram.
Kiev’s allies are worried about how Russian President Vladimir Putin would respond if their weapons were used against targets inside Russian territory.
Russian state news agency TASS quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying that Moscow would change its nuclear doctrine in response to the West’s actions on the conflict. He did not say what the changes would be.
Russia’s current nuclear doctrine, laid out in a 2020 decree by President Vladimir Putin, calls for the use of nuclear weapons in the event of a nuclear attack by an enemy or a conventional attack that threatens the existence of the state. can do
Russia, which accuses the West of using Ukraine as a proxy to wage war against it, has said before considering the changes.
“The work is at an advanced stage, and there is a clear intention to reform,” TASS quoted Ryabkov as saying.
Some hawks among Russia’s military analysts have urged Putin to scale back nuclear use to “sober up” Russia’s adversaries in the West.
Advances in eastern Ukraine.
In eastern Ukraine, where most of the fighting is focused, Russian forces continued to advance towards Pokrosk, a key military center and transport link to towns and cities further north.
Ukraine had hoped that its surprise incursion into Russia’s Kursk region last month would force Russia to redeploy troops and ease pressure on besieged forces in the east, but that has so far not had that effect.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces had captured two more settlements in the Donetsk region and were “continuing to advance deep into the enemy’s defenses”. One of them, Ptyche, is 21 km (13 mi) southeast of Pokrosk.
At least three people were killed and nine wounded in Russian shelling in the town of Korakhov, 35 kilometers south of Pokrosk, Ukrainian officials said.
Ukraine’s army chief, Oleksandr Serskyi, described the situation around Russia’s main offensive line in eastern Ukraine as “difficult”.
Regional Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said that on Sunday, Ukrainian forces shelled Russia’s southern Belgorod region, injuring 11 people, including two children.
(Other than the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
