Ukraine has hit a Russian chemical plant with Storm Shadow missiles, its military said on Tuesday, referring to the UK-made long-range weapon.
Calling the strike “a successful hit” that penetrated the Russian air defence system, Ukraine’s general staff of the armed forces said they were still assessing the outcome of the “massive” strike.
Hours later Russia launched a heavy drone and missile attack on several Ukrainian regions, leaving six people dead, including two children, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Emergency power outages were in place in Kyiv itself as well as the Kyiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions, and reports said Russia had targeted thermal power plants.The attack came on the same day that UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and other European leaders vowed to “ramp up the pressure on Russia’s economy and its defence industry” until Russian leader Vladimir Putin “is ready to make peace”.
A joint statement – co-signed by the Ukrainian, German, French, Italian, Polish, Danish, Finnish, EU and Norwegian leaders – added that “Ukraine must be in the strongest position – before, during, and after any ceasefire”.
The mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko said on Wednesday that debris from Russia’s overnight strikes had badly damaged a number of buildings in the capital.
The head of the city’s military administration, Timur Tkachenko, said two people died in the capital.
Witnesses heard explosions that sounded like air defence units in operation, the Reuters news agency reported.In remarks at the White House, the US president indicated that a key sticking point remained Moscow’s refusal to cease fighting along the current front line.
Just last month, Trump appeared to take a major shift in his position towards ending the war, saying Kyiv could “win all of Ukraine back in its original form” – referring to Ukraine’s internationally recognised borders.
Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. It currently controls about 20% of Ukrainian territory, including the southern Crimea peninsular Moscow annexed in 2014.
