Russia launched a rush-hour barrage of missiles toward Ukraine on Thursday, killing at least one person, the day after Kyiv secured Western pledges of dozens of modern battlefield tanks to try to push back the Russian invasion.
Moscow reacted with fury to the German and American announcements, and has in the past responded to apparent Ukrainian successes with airstrikes that have left millions without light, heat or water.
Ukrainian air defences shot down 47 of the 55 missiles Russian forces fired at Ukraine, the country’s top general said on Thursday.
Moscow used the Kh-47 Kinzhal hypersonic missile, among other models, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny said on his Telegram channel. Twenty of the incoming missiles were shot down around the area of the capital Kyiv, he said.
“The goal of the Russians remains unchanged: psychological pressure on Ukrainians and the destruction of critical infrastructure,” he wrote. “But we cannot be broken!”
In the Ukrainian capital, crowds of people took cover in underground metro stations. Mayor Vitali Klitschko said one person had been killed and two wounded when a missile hit non-residential buildings in the south of the city.
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Kyiv’s military administration said more than 15 missiles fired at Kyiv had been shot down, but urged people to remain on shelters.
DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy producer, said it was conducting emergency power shutdowns in Kyiv, the surrounding region and also the regions of Odesa and Dnipropetrovsk because of the imminent danger.
In Odesa, Russian missile strikes damaged energy infrastructure, the district military administration said.
Western analysts say the attacks on Ukraine’s cities are more an attempt to break morale than a strategic campaign.
Russia scoffs at Western claims
The Kremlin said on Thursday it saw the promised delivery of Western tanks to Ukraine as “direct involvement” of the United States and Europe in the 11-month-old conflict.
“There are constant statements from European capitals and Washington that the sending of various weapons systems to Ukraine, including tanks, in no way signifies the involvement of these countries or the alliance in hostilities in Ukraine,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
“We categorically disagree with this, and in Moscow, everything that the alliance and the capitals I mentioned are doing is seen as direct involvement in the conflict. We see that this is growing.”
Ukraine’s allies have already provided billions of dollars worth of military support, including sophisticated U.S. missile systems that have helped turn the tide of the war in the last six months.
The United States has been wary of deploying the difficult-to-maintain Abrams but had to change tack to persuade Germany to send to Ukraine its more easily operated German-built Leopards.
Germany will send an initial company of 14 tanks from its stocks, which it said could be operational in three or four months, and approve shipments by allied European states with the aim of equipping two battalions — in the region of 100 tanks.
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The Leopard is a system that any NATO member can service, and crews and mechanics can be trained together on a single model, Ukrainian military expert Viktor Kevlyuk told Espreso TV.
“If we have been brought into this club by providing us with these vehicles, I would say our prospects look good.”
Weeks of training required
Training for Ukrainian troops will begin in the coming days, German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said. Ukrainian crews will start their training on German-made Marders, which are infantry fighting vehicles, then on the heavier Leopard 2 tanks.
“In any case, the aim with the Leopards is to have the first company in Ukraine by the end of March, beginning of April,” Pistorius said. “I can’t say the precise day.”
Both Ukraine and Russia have so far relied primarily on Soviet-era T-72 tanks.
“The key now is speed and volumes. Speed in training our forces, speed in supplying tanks to Ukraine,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address on Wednesday.
Maintaining Kyiv’s drumbeat of requests, Zelenskyy said he had spoken to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and asked for long-range missiles and aircraft.
Both sides are expected to mount new ground offensives come the spring, and Ukraine has been seeking hundreds of modern tanks in the hope of using them to break Russian defensive lines and recapture occupied territory in the south and east.
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The Russian invasion has killed thousands of civilians, forced millions from their homes and reduced entire cities to rubble since Feb. 24, 2022.
The heaviest fighting for now is around Bakhmut, a town in eastern Ukraine with a pre-war population of 70,000 that has seen some of the most brutal combat of the war.
Ukraine’s military said Russia was attacking “with the aim of capturing the entire Donetsk region and regardless of its own casualties.”
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