[ad_1]
Ukraine’s air defenses shot down dozens of Russian missiles in the sky above Kyiv early Thursday, throwing flaming debris at the Ukrainian capital on the same day as an explosion damaged a Russian freight train in Crimea, the latest in a series of explosions in the Russian-held territory. territory.
Russian train operators said “unauthorized persons” were behind the derailment, suggesting an act of sabotage. Ukrainian authorities, who often neither confirm nor deny responsibility for events in Crimea or Russia, have denied any role in the derailment.
The missile strikes and explosions in Crimea come as Russia and Ukraine prepare for an offensive against Ukraine aimed at retaking the land it controls. In anticipation of the campaign, Russia has fired volley after volley of missiles — Thursday’s was the ninth attack on Kyiv this month — in a long-range effort to harm civilians and keep Ukraine’s air defenses away from the front lines.
And the explosion in Crimea matches the pattern of attacks on Russian railways, supply lines, fuel depots and ammunition stores that analysts call the Ukrainian push to cripple the Russian war machine and sow instability ahead of the attack.
Ukraine’s air defense intercepted 29 of 30 missiles fired at Ukraine overnight, the country’s military said on Thursday. Debris from one broken missile caused a fire in a Kyiv neighborhood, but there were no injuries, according to Serhiy Popko, the city’s military administrator.
“The series of airstrikes in Kyiv, unprecedented in power, intensity and variety, continues,” Mr. Popko said on Telegram.
A missile that penetrated Ukraine’s defenses hit an industrial infrastructure site in the southern port of Odesa, city officials said. One civilian was killed and two others were wounded, according to the Ukrainian military’s southern command.
Kyiv has been particularly hit by attack after attack in recent weeks. Russian and US officials said this week that the Patriot missile system, which protects the city from ballistic missiles, had been damaged in the previous barrage. But US officials say the system remains operational.
Ukraine has sought to push Russian forces into contested territory – making new gains in the bitter battle for the city of Bakhmut – and away from the front lines. Russian authorities and their proxies have reported a series of explosions and attacks in recent weeks, including multiple train explosions.
The derailment in Crimea on Thursday caused no injuries but disrupted rail services between the two cities, Simferopol and Sevastopol, according to Sergei Aksyonov, the Russian-installed governor. Russia’s state news agency RIA Novosti said eight cars derailed, citing Crimea’s transport minister.
Video verified by The New York Times shows the train derailed on the outskirts of Simferopol. It is unclear whether the train was running at the time.
Crimea plays an important role in supplying Russian forces in the occupied territories and has great symbolic value to the government of President Vladimir V. Putin, who seized the peninsula in 2014 and portrays it as the center of Russia’s national restoration.
Ukrainian officials have vowed to retake the peninsula, and it has been subject to attacks since Russia’s full-scale invasion last year, including an explosion that badly damaged a bridge linking Crimea to Russia.
Unreservedly, Ukrainian officials attributed the explosion at a Russian infrastructure site to affecting Russia’s ability to counter — and prepare for — the attack.
“On these tracks, in particular, weapons, ammunition, armored vehicles and other things used in the war of aggression against Ukraine are transported,” said Andriy Yusov, a spokesman for Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, on Ukrainian television on Thursday. “It’s natural that this track is not holding up, it’s tired and now it won’t work for a while.”
But analysts say that while railways are a critical artery for Russia’s war logistics, individual attacks have limited effect.
“The train track was always restored at least a day, and the day after the explosion, the train was running as usual,” said Ruslan Leviev, an analyst with the Conflict Intelligence Team, an investigative group. “This is more than a gain in the moral sense, in the spirit of, ‘Look, we can blow up a target deep in Russian territory.'”
And military experts caution that it is too soon to say whether Ukraine will withstand any apparent attack, or to assess its effectiveness.
“Whether the attack will have enough effect to counter Russian operations – we have yet to see,” said Mathieu Boulegue, a Russia expert at Chatham House, a research group in London. “It’s all about whether it starts to have a systemic effect.”
In recent weeks, pro-Russian officials have also accused Ukraine of launching drone strikes on the peninsula. In one example, a drone strike on a fuel depot in Sevastopol, home to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, caused a massive fire in late April.
There were also attacks on targets in Russian territory near the Ukrainian border. In a Telegram Thursday, the governor of Russia’s Belgorod region confirmed that Ukrainian forces had killed two civilians – he did not say how – in a village near the border. Two trains were launched this month in the Bryansk region, according to local officials.
In some cases, Ukrainian officials have publicly celebrated the incident. In April, for example, Mr. Yusov, the intelligence official, said that a fire at a fuel depot in Crimea “is going well and many Ukrainians and good people in the world are happy.”
Victoria Kim, Anton Troyanovski and Haley Willis contribute reports.
[ad_2]
Source link