Ukraine war briefing: Zelenskiy calls for more air defences after deadly strike on Kharkiv store
Russian strikes on a crowded DIY hardware store and a residential area in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Saturdaykilled at least six people and injured dozens, local officials said. Two guided bombs hit the DIY hypermarket in a residential area of the city, regional governor Oleh Syniehubov said on national television. At least two of the dead were store employees. Forty people were injured, with at least three in serious condition. Sixteen people were still unaccounted for, Syniehubov said.
A separate early evening missile strike hit a residential building in the centre of the city of 1.3 million, injuring 18 people, Syniehubov said. The missile left a crater several metres deep in the pavement at the foot of the building, which also housed a post office, a beauty salon and a cafe.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in his nightly video address, denounced the strike as “yet another example of Russian madness. There is no other way to describe it.”Zelenskiy also issued a plea to Ukraine’s western allies to help boost air defences to keep the country’s cities safe. He said: “When we tell world leaders that Ukraine needs sufficient air defences, when we say we need real decisive measures to enable us to protect our people, so that Russian terrorists cannot even approach our border, we are talking about not allowing strikes like this to happen.”
French president Emmanuel Macron,writing on social media platform X,denounced the attack on the store as “unacceptable”. Moscow denies deliberately targeting civilians, but thousands have been killed and injured during its 27-month invasion of Ukraine.
Just over the border, Ukrainian attacks on Saturday killed four residents in southern Russia’s Belgorod region, regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said. Gladkov, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said three people were killed in the village of Oktyabrsky in a multiple rocket attack. He said in the village of Dubovoye, an attack killed a woman working in her garden. Russia’s defence ministry also said that air defence units had intercepted and destroyed a Ukrainian drone over the adjacent Kursk region. It was not possible to verify the battlefield accounts of each side.
Russia said on Saturday it had captured another village in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, while Kyiv said Moscow was intensifying attacks away from the north-eastern Kharkiv region. The Russian defence ministry said that troops had “taken control of the village of Arkhangelske”, located to the north of the city of Donetsk. The small frontline village is near the town of Ocheretyne, which Russia said it had captured early this month. Ukraine’s General Staff said on Saturday that Russian forces were “particularly active” near the town of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. It said six firefights were ongoing near the villages of Kalynove, Yasnobrodivka and Sokil, south of the village of Arkhangelske.
Ukrainian police meanwhile said three civilians had been killedand two wounded in Russian attacks on the Donetsk region, where there had been over 1,800 strikes over the last day.
G7 finance ministers cited “progress” in finding ways to use profits from frozen Russian assets to help Ukraine as they wrapped up a meeting Saturday, envisioning a concrete proposal to present to a leaders’ summit next month. They reiterated in their final statement that Russian assets frozen by the Group of Seven nations “will remain immobilised until Russia pays for the damage it has caused to Ukraine”. But they went further, saying they were “committed to further financial and economic sanctions,” including in the energy sector. Russian finance minister Anton Siluanov has said Moscow would reciprocate if the G7 went through with its threat.
Meanwhile, the governor of the Bank of Italy, Fabio Panetta, said Italian banks should quit Russiaeven though doing so would be complicated and costly. “Knowing that you are forced to find a buyer can be difficult, however in the end you have to get out of there because there is a reputational problem as well,” he told reporters.
A long-term rearmament of Europe, in which the UK can play the closest possible role, is necessary to defeat Russian imperial ambitions, Poland’s foreign minister has said. Radosław Sikorski also called for majority voting for EU sanctions and a 5,000-strong EU mechanised brigade, and said Poland was willing to back an EU-wide scheme to incentivise Ukrainian draft dodgers to return to their homeland.
US president Joe Biden reiterated on Saturday that he does not intend to send American soldiers to Ukraine, while praising US leadership in the world – implicitly responding to accusations of weakness made by Republican rival Donald Trump. “There are no American soldiers at war in Ukraine. I’m determined to keep it that way, but we are standing strong with Ukraine,” said the Democrat, addressing the graduating class of West Point military academy.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy is set to travel to Portugal on Tuesday, after his planned visit to Spain, CNN Portugal reported on Saturday. Earlier this month, Zelenskiy postponed his trip to Madrid and Lisbon amid intense fighting in the Kharkiv region.