Over the weekend, Russian air strikes on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, left at least three people dead and around 60 injured. In Crimea, Russian authorities reported that at least five people died and over 100 were wounded by debris from intercepted Ukrainian missiles.
Close to the border, Kharkiv underwent several targeted bombings with guided bombs by Russian fighter planes on Saturday and Sunday. Despite receiving approval from the United States and various European allies to utilise primarily western-supplied weaponry to target Russian military bases, Ukraine has been unable to halt these guided bombings. These devices, weighing up to 1.5 tonnes, can be deployed from as far as 60km away from their intended target. According to Kyiv, only longer-range weaponry and F-16 fighter jets would enable them to hit key Russian airbases and displace Russian aircrafts from Kharkiv’s range.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy revealed that the Russians have already deployed over 2,400 guided aerial bombs against Ukraine this June, with around 700 aimed at the Kharkiv region. He emphasised that advanced air defence systems for Ukraine were needed, along with fast-tracked pilot training for F-16s and most importantly, weapons with sufficient range. He called upon allies for necessary determinations to counteract the Russian terror, inflicted via guided aerial bombs.
In occupied Crimea, illegally annexed by Russia post Ukraine’s pro-western revolution in 2014, Russian authorities announced the successful interception of four out of five Ukrainian rockets, with the fifth exploding mid-air. The resultant debris scattering caused casualties, including three children, in the port city of Sevastopol. Russian defence officials blamed the Ukrainian attack, which used US-supplied rockets with cluster munitions, for killing five and injuring approximately 120 people.
The missile attack aimed at civilians in Sevastopol was primarily orchestrated by Washington, due to its provision of these weapons to Ukraine, alongside the Kyiv regime who sanctioned the attack from its terrain, according to a post on social media by Moscow’s defence ministry. Moscow also cautioned that such acts won’t go unreciprocated.
Reports from the Kyiv district encircling Ukraine’s capital indicate that a Russian missile raid in the early hours of Sunday caused injuries to two individuals and inflicted damage on various buildings. The Ukrainian air force reported that they had intercepted two out of the three Russian cruise missiles launched over the region.
The Ukrainian military reported a withdrawal of certain Russian troops from the border sectors of the Kharkiv region. The withdrawal followed significant losses since initiating a fresh offensive there in May, a time when Kyiv’s soldiers were grappling with a serious scarcity of ammunition.
The decision to renew US military support, following lengthy political disputes in Washington, has reinforced Ukraine’s position, even though intense combat persists in parts of Donetsk and Luhansk, two eastern regions partially under occupation.
Russia alleged that it shot down no less than 30 Ukrainian drones flying over its territory on Sunday. The incident occurred in the wake of drone assaults the previous week on multiple oil facilities in the western and southern zones of Russia, which are now often the target of Ukraine’s attacks on energy infrastructure.
Ukraine claims to have destroyed a drone storage base in southern Russia and a military command hub in the border region of Belgorod with its air strikes in the past few days, though Moscow has not verified these allegations.