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Russia fired a missile into Ukraine on Thursday, killing at least one person, a day after Kyiv secured a Western pledge of dozens of modern battle tanks to try to repel the Russian invasion.
Moscow reacted angrily to the German and American announcements, and earlier responded to the Ukrainian success with airstrikes that left millions of people without light, heat or water.
Ukraine’s air defenses shot down 47 of 55 missiles fired by Russian forces at Ukraine, the country’s top general said on Thursday.
Moscow uses the Kh-47 Kinzhal hypersonic missile, among other models, General Valery Zaluzhny said on the Telegram channel. Twenty incoming missiles were fired around the Kyiv capital region, he said.
“Russia’s goals remain unchanged: psychological pressure on Ukrainians and destruction of critical infrastructure,” he wrote. “But we are indestructible!”
In the capital of Ukraine, many people covered the underground metro station. Mayor Vitali Klitschko said one person was killed and two were wounded when a missile struck a non-residential building in the south of the city.
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Kyiv’s military government said more than 15 missiles fired at Kyiv had been shot down, but urged people to stay in shelters.
DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy producer, said it was conducting an emergency power shutdown in Kyiv, the surrounding area as well as Odesa and Dnipropetrovsk regions due to imminent danger.
In Odesa, Russian missiles hit damaged energy infrastructure, the district military administration said.
Western analysts say the attacks on Ukrainian cities are more an attempt to undermine morale than a strategic campaign.
Russia scoffs at Western claims
The Kremlin said on Thursday that it saw the delivery of Western tanks to Ukraine as “direct involvement” of the United States and Europe in the 11-month conflict.
“There are constant statements from European capitals and Washington that sending various weapons systems to Ukraine, including tanks, does not mean the involvement of the country or its alliance in hostilities in Ukraine,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
“We don’t agree with this, and in Moscow, everything that the alliance and the capital do to me seems to be a direct involvement in the conflict. We see that this is growing.”
Ukraine’s allies have provided billions of dollars in military support, including sophisticated US missile systems that have helped turn the tide of the war over the past six months.
The United States had been wary of deploying the hard-to-maintain Abrams but had to change tactics to persuade Germany to send to Ukraine the easier-to-operate German-made Leopards.
Germany will send an initial company of 14 tanks from the stock, which he said could be operational in three or four months, and approved the shipment by the allied European countries with the aim of equipping two battalions – in the region of 100 tanks.
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Leopard is a system that can be serviced by NATO members, and the crew and mechanics can be trained together in one model, Ukrainian military expert Viktor Kevlyuk told Espreso TV.
“If we have been brought to this club by giving them this vehicle, I would say that our prospects look good.”
A week of practice is required
Training for Ukrainian forces will begin in the coming days, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said. Ukrainian crews will begin training on German-made Marders, which are infantry fighting vehicles, and then on heavier Leopard 2 tanks.
“In any case, the goal with Leopards is to have the first company in Ukraine at the end of March, beginning of April,” Pistorius said. “I can’t say the exact day.”
Both Ukraine and Russia to this day rely primarily on Soviet-era T-72 tanks.
“The key now is speed and volume. The speed of training our troops, the speed of supplying tanks to Ukraine,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a nightly video speech on Wednesday.
Defending Kyiv’s request, Zelenskyy said he had spoken with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and asked for long-range missiles and aircraft.
Both parties are expected to mount a new ground attack come spring, and Ukraine has been seeking hundreds of modern tanks in the hope of using them to break the Russian defense line and recapture the occupied territories in the south and east.
WATCH | Ukraine controls 30% of the territory that could become the main battleground next week:
CBC’s Chris Brown joined Ukrainian soldiers in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, to witness firsthand the war effort to push back the Russian presence there. Military experts say the region is the next big battle, as it is important for both countries.
The Russian invasion has killed thousands of civilians, forced millions from their homes and reduced entire cities to rubble as of February 24, 2022.
The heaviest fighting today is around Bakhmut, a town in eastern Ukraine with a pre-war population of 70,000 that has seen some of the most brutal fighting of the war.
Ukraine’s military said Russia attacked “with the aim of capturing the entire Donetsk region and regardless of its own casualties.”
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