Russia bombs civilian areas for the first time in the city of Dnipro, in central Ukraine

Shelling on Friday hit civilian areas in Dnipro, a city in central Ukraine so far protected from attacks, indicated the Ukrainian emergency services, which reported one victim.

Early in the morning “there have been three air strikes in the city, hitting a kindergarten, an apartment building and a two-storey shoe factory where a fire has broken out. One person has died,” they said in a statement.

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In the city of Lutsk, in northwestern Ukrainethere were also bombings.

Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov announced that “the Lutsk and Ivano-Frankivsk military airfields (in western Ukraine) were out of service.”

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“Explosions next to the airport. Everyone stay safe! Do not post any photos, addresses or data, ”he warned for his part on Facebook Ilhor Polishchuk, the mayor of Lutsk.

Dniproan industrial city on the banks of the Dnieper River, which separates the east of the pro-Russian country from the rest of the Ukrainian territory, was the target of bombings that caused at least one death, according to local authorities.

“There have been three air strikes in the city, hitting a kindergarten, an apartment building and a two-story shoe factory where a fire has broken out. One person has died.”indicated the emergency services in Dnipro.

For its part, the Russian Ministry of Defense indicated that “the military airfields of Lutsk and Ivano-Franovsk (west) were out of service.” Two Ukrainian soldiers were killed and six wounded in the shelling of the Lutsk military airport, according to these sources.

The war has already pushed more than 2.5 million people out of Ukraine and another two million to flee to other parts of the country, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

This Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin supported the participation of “volunteer” combatants in the conflict along with the nearly 150,000 soldiers deployed on the ground, in response to the “mercenaries” sent by Western countries.

The idea came from the Ministry of Defense and, according to the Kremlin, it would be mainly citizens of the Middle East, especially Syrians, who would have expressed their desire to go to the front to fight alongside Russia.

Kyiv “Fortress”

Previously, the Ukrainian army warned in a report that “the enemy is trying to eliminate the defenses of the Ukrainian forces” in numerous locations west and north of Kiev with the aim of “blockading the capital”.

This source did not exclude “an enemy movement to the east in the direction of Brovary”, at the gates of Kiev.

The mayor of the capital, the famous ex-boxer Vitali Klichkó, ​​said that half of the population had left and that the city, previously with almost 3 million inhabitants, “had been transformed into a fortress”.

“Every street, every building, every checkpoint has been fortified,” he said.

Since the beginning of the offensive, on February 24, the invading forces have surrounded at least four large Ukrainian cities and have sent armed vehicles to the northeast flank of Kiev, where suburbs such as Irpin or Busha have been bombed for days.

Ukrainian soldiers described heavy fighting to control the main highway leading to the capital.

The British Ministry of Defense indicated that this strategy of surrounding cities “will reduce the number of forces available to advance and slow down Russian progress.”

“brutal attack”

The night bombardments also reached the cities of Chernigov (north), Sumy (northeast) and Kharkov (east), heavily impacted by the Russian offensive. The attacks caused damage to residential buildings and water and electricity supply infrastructure.

Near Oskil, in the Kharkov region, a facility for people with disabilities was targeted by Russian bombardment, a local official said on Friday.

“The Russians again carried out a brutal attack on civilians,” Oleh Sinegubov lamented on Telegram, indicating that no casualties were recorded. There were 330 people in the center at the time of the attack, 73 of whom were able to be evacuated.

This attack occurred two days after the bombing of a pediatric hospital in Mariúpol (south), which caused the death of three people, including a girl. In that city, on the shores of the Sea of ​​Azov, the situation is described as “apocalyptic”.

According to its mayor, Vadim Boishenko, more than 1,200 residents died in Mariupol after ten days of siege.

The local representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Sasha Volkov, warned that some residents “have started fighting over food” and that many were left without drinking water.

In addition, the United Nations indicated that two other pediatric hospitals were attacked and destroyed in addition to the one in Mariúpol. According to the person in charge of human rights of the Ukrainian Parliament, Liudmyla Denisova, 71 children have died in this war and more than 100 were injured.

Although with disagreements and reproaches of non-compliance, both sides agreed on humanitarian corridors that allowed the evacuation in the last two days of some 100,000 civilians from Sumy (northeast), Izium (east) and the outskirts of Kiev.

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Source: Elcomercio

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