KYIV, Ukraine — Russian aerial attacks overnight and during daylight Wednesday killed two civilians and wounded six in a central Ukraine city, local officials said, while the Kyiv and Odesa regions bore the brunt of Moscow’s latest attacks.
The air war between Russia and Ukraine has intensified as the conflict stretches into its fifth year following Moscow’s invasion of its neighbor. The front line in eastern and southern Ukraine remains largely deadlocked, and U.S. efforts to negotiate a settlement have yet to produce a path to peace.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy exchanged threats late Tuesday over what their next steps might be.
Zelenskyy warned foreign airlines that the skies over Russia are not safe for flights because of Ukrainian long-range drone attacks, saying that “Russian airspace will effectively be closing.” The military pressure aims to compel Russia to accept peace negotiations, he said.
Putin accused Zelenskyy of “state terrorism” and said: “We don’t negotiate with terrorists.”
Putin’s comments got short shrift from Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation, a government body, which said the remarks were a flagrant attempt by the Russian leader to shift the blame away from Moscow.
“A state that itself unleashed this war, that daily commits terror against Ukrainian civilians and destroys cities, is again trying to portray itself as a ‘victim,’” the center said.
Russian Transport Minister Andrey Nikitin dismissed any travel concerns, saying that authorities are constantly strengthening flight safety.
“We will not allow any significant disruptions to civil aviation,” he told reporters, according to Russian news agency Interfax.
At a late-night news conference on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Kyrgyzstan, Putin also addressed reports that the Ukrainian military had used British-made drones to strike targets inside Russia.
Asked whether Russia would strike British military facilities if the U.K. government continues to provide Ukraine with weaponry, Putin declined to rule it out. With a small smile, he told reporters that is “a military secret.”
China and North Korea, meanwhile, have provided military support for Russia, as has Iran in previous years.
The Russian and Ukrainian leaders’ comments came as European officials weigh their response to the latest in what they say is Moscow’s campaign of continental sabotage and disruption aimed at weakening support for Ukraine. Germany on Tuesday blamed Russia for an attempted attack at Leipzig/Halle Airport last month using a drone laden with explosives.
Russia fired 174 attack drones, about half of them jet-powered drones that are hard to stop and are increasingly being deployed by Moscow, as well as two ballistic missiles and two plane-launched missiles at Ukraine overnight, according to the Ukrainian air force.
Russian strikes on the city of Dnipro in central Ukraine killed a man and a woman, local officials said.
The assault hit food warehouses belonging to a Dnipro retail chain, wounding at least six people, said Oleksandr Hanzha, head of the Dnipropetrovsk regional military administration.
Moscow’s forces have recently hit other food storage depots, leaving some supermarket shelves empty. Russian forces have targeted civilian facilities in what Ukrainian officials say is an effort to disrupt daily life and sap public morale.
“Unfortunately, there has been far too little response from the world and its most influential leaders to this latest Russian escalation of strikes,” Zelenskyy said on social media Wednesday. “Every partner knows what is needed: air defense for Ukraine, sanctions against Russia, and a significant increase in defense production.”
Officials in the southern Ukraine region of Odesa reported that the attack damaged a 24-story residential building, destroying apartments on several floors and wounding eight people, including a child.
A man and a woman were wounded by shrapnel in morning attacks on the Kyiv region, according to Tymur Tkachenko, head of the regional military administration.
It was the seventh straight day Kyiv came under attack, although the latest barrage wasn’t as heavy as in previous days.
Russian air defenses destroyed 130 Ukrainian drones overnight, Russia’s Defense Ministry said Wednesday. The drones were shot down over 11 Russian regions, as well as the annexed Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea and the Black Sea, it said.
Ukrainian drone attacks killed two people in Russia’s Belgorod border region and wounded 16 more, acting Gov. Alexander Shuvayev said. Ukrainian forces hit the region 140 times over the course of 24 hours, he said.
Ukraine’s domestically developed long-range drones have repeatedly targeted Russia’s oil sector, hoping to dent the economy, and the warehouses of online retailers, to make the Russian public feel the effects of war.
The Russian army’s effort to drive deeper into Ukraine has lost its momentum, according to Western analysts and officials.
Russian advances in August were “a fraction” of Moscow’s gains during the same month last year, the Institute for the Study of War said late Tuesday.
Russia’s spring-summer offensive has failed to smash Ukraine’s front-line defenses, the Washington-based think tank said.
“Russian gains remain slow and limited,” it said.
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Hatton reported from Lisbon, Portugal.
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