Kyiv, Ukraine
Reuters
Ukraine fended off 36 Russian air attacks in and around the capital overnight while pro-Kyiv Russian fighters said they were battling Russian forces for a second day inside Russia, trading blame with Moscow for the deaths of two civilians.
A view shows an office building damaged during Russian missile strikes, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine, on 1st June, 2023. PICTURE: Press service of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine in Kyiv/Handout via Reuters
Russia has launched about 20 waves of attacks on Kyiv since the beginning of May, in a surge that Ukraine says appears aimed at derailing its preparations for a major counter-offensive to try to end Russia’s invasion.
ZELENSKIY ORDERS AUDIT OF AIR RAID SHELTERS AFTER DEATHS, CONDEMNS NEGLIGENCE
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy ordered an audit of all Ukrainian air raid shelters on Friday as a rift widened with Kyiv’s mayor after the deaths of three people locked out on the street during a Russian attack.
A nine-year-old girl, her mother and another woman were killed by falling debris after rushing to a Kyiv shelter on Thursday and finding it was shut.
“There can be no excuses for this level of negligence in the city,” Zelenskiy said in an evening video address, adding he had told the strategic industries minister and the interior minister to conduct a “full audit of bomb shelters”.
Police have detained four people in an investigation into the deaths. Three of them may be charged with official negligence, the interior ministry said in a statement on Telegram.
The deaths caused a public outcry and a promise of a harsh response by Zelenskiy which appears aimed at Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko, a former world champion boxer who has clashed with the president before.
Zelenskiy said Kyiv inhabitants had been publishing information about closed shelters and the absence of shelters in some parts of the city.
Klitschko acknowledged at a local committee meeting on Friday that he bore some responsibility but said others were to blame, particularly allies of the president.
He said spending on shelters in Kyiv districts, most of which are led by members of Zelenskiy’s Servant of the People party, had been “extremely unsatisfactory” and underlined the military administration was led by a presidential appointee.
Klitschko called for “common and fair responsibility” and said he may lobby for the dismissal of district heads after a review of spending on the maintenance of shelters.
“Districts of the capital are not separate principalities where you can walk around in white gloves and neglect your duties,” he said, adding that he would not tolerate “sabotage”.
In an earlier spat, Zelenskiy accused Klitschko in November of doing a poor job setting up emergency shelters to help people without power and heat.
– DAN PELESCHUK and additional reporting by DAVUD LJUNGGREN and TOM BALMFORTH, Kyiv, Ukraine/Reuters
A child was one of two people injured by falling debris in a region outside the Ukrainian capital as air defences shot down what the air force said on Friday were 15 Russian cruise missiles and 21 drones.
“The occupiers are not stopping their attempts to terrorise the Ukrainian capital with strike drones and missiles,” the Ukrainian Government said.
Russian officials reported cross-border shelling from several areas of northern Ukraine on Friday in the latest sign that Kyiv is starting to push back beyond its borders after more than 15 months of all-out Russian assault.
The Governor of Russia’s Belgorod region said two people had been killed and four wounded when Ukrainian forces shelled a road in the town of Maslova Pristan near the Ukrainian border. Shell fragments had struck passing cars.
“Two women were travelling in one of them. They died from their injuries on the spot,” Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Telegram.
Gladkov said two people had been wounded and an industrial facility had caught fire after shelling in the town of Shebekino.
Shebekino suffered heavy bombardment on Thursday as well as a cross-border incursion, Russian officials said.
Russia said on Thursday it had repelled a second attempted incursion into the Belgorod border region in just over a week by what it casts as pro-Ukrainian militants. Ukraine denies involvement.
The Freedom of Russia Legion blamed Russia for the shelling of cars on Telegram, while posting images of what it said was one of its tanks in the nearby Russian village of Novaya Tavolzhanka and soldiers taking cover behind a wall during a gunfight.
“Near Tavolzhanka, the enemy destroyed a Renault car with civilians, mistaking it for a car with our sabotage group. At least two civilians were killed, and this is a direct consequence of the lack of professionalism of Putin’s army,” the Legion said on the Telegram messaging app.
The group describes itself as Russians fighting President Vladimir Putin’s government to create a Russia that would be part of the “free world”. Along with the Russian Volunteer Corps founded by a far-right Russian nationalist, it says they are Russian volunteers attacking under their own steam, and not on the orders of Ukraine.
A still image from a drone footage released by Freedom of Russia Legion shows, what they claim, is a destruction of Russian military targets, near Novaya Tavolzhanka, Belgorod Region, Russia, in this image obtained from social media released on 1st June, 2023. PICTURE: Freedom Of Russia Legion/via Reuters
No immediate NATO membership
Putin told his Security Council on Friday that “ill-wishers” were increasingly trying to destabilise Russia.
“We must do everything we can to make sure that under no circumstances will they be allowed to do this,” Putin said.
Thousands of people in Ukraine have been killed since Russia’s invasion began on 24th February, 2022, while millions have fled their homes and towns and cities have been devastated, particularly in Russian-speaking areas. At the same time, Ukraine’s military has been hugely strengthened by Western equipment and training.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has pressed NATO to let Ukraine join, but members of the Western defence alliance are divided over how fast that should happen, many wary of any move that might take the alliance into war with Russia.
In a joint briefing in Kyiv with Estonian President Alar Karis on Friday, he said joining the alliance was the best security guarantee for Kyiv.
“But we are adequate people and understand that we will not pull any NATO country into a war,” Zelenskiy said. “And that’s why we understand that we won’t be a member of NATO while this war is ongoing. Not because we don’t want to, because it’s impossible.”
The governors of the Bryansk, Kursk, Smolensk and Kaluga regions of Russia all reported shelling or drone attacks, with some buildings damaged and energy infrastructure targeted, although no fires at oil facilities or injuries were reported.
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Within Ukraine, two people were killed and four wounded in Russian shelling of the village of Komyshevaha in the southern Zaporizhzhia region, the regional Governor said.
A Russian-installed official in the same region said a number of people had been injured in Ukrainian shelling. Earlier he said Ukrainian forces had hit a “hospital camp”.
In the eastern province of Donetsk, Russia said a new offensive had been launched by Chechen special forces.
Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia are two of four regions in eastern and southern Ukraine that Russia claims to have annexed in the invasion to “demilitarise” a country it said threatened Russian-speakers and Russia with its moves towards the West.
Meanwhile, a Russian-installed official in the Zaporizhzhia region said on Friday that Ukrainian forces shelled the Russian-controlled port city of Berdyansk on the Sea of Azov and that nine people had been reported injured.
“Information on the fatalities is being clarified,” Vladimir Rogov said on the Telegram messaging app. He shared a video that appeared to show a large cloud of grey smoke rising from near the port area.
Reuters was able to confirm the location of the video as Berdyansk but could not independently verify the date the video was filmed.
– Additional reporting by DAVID LJUNGGREN and GUY FAULCONBRIDGE
