Russian forces have stepped up sporadic attacks in Kyiv, western Ukraine and after Saturday in an explosive reminder to Ukrainians and their Western backers that the whole country remains under threat despite Moscow turning to a new offensive in the east. Drowned by the loss of its flagship in the Black Sea and outraged by the alleged Ukrainian aggression on Russian soil, the Russian military administration had warned of new rocket attacks on the Ukrainian capital. Officials in Moscow said they were targeting military bases, a claim that was repeated – and denied by witnesses – during the 52-day war. The account goes much deeper. Every day brings new discoveries of civilians victims of an invasion that has shaken European security. As Russia prepared for the impending attack, a mother wept over the body of her 15-year-old son after rockets hit a residential area of Kharkiv, a city in northeastern Ukraine. One baby and at least eight others were killed, officials said. In the Kiev region, authorities said they had found the bodies of more than 900 civilians, most of them shot dead, since Russian troops withdrew two weeks ago. Smoke rose again from the capital in the early hours of Saturday, as Mayor Vitali Klitschko reported a strike that killed one person and injured several others. The mayor advised residents who left the city earlier in the war not to return. “We do not rule out further strikes in the capital,” Klitschko said. “If you have the opportunity to stay a little longer in cities where it is safer, do it.” It was not immediately clear from the ground what hit the strike in the Darnytskyi district of Kiev. The large area at the southeastern tip of the capital contains a mix of Soviet-style apartment buildings, newer shopping malls and large retail stores, industrial areas and railway facilities. Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said the target was an armored factory. He did not specify where the plant was located, but there is one in the Darnytskyi area. He said the plant was among several Ukrainian military sites hit by “high-precision long-range air weapons”. As the US and Europe send new weapons to Ukraine, the strategy could be aimed at thwarting Ukraine’s defense before what is expected to be a full-scale Russian offensive in the east. It was the second strike in the Kiev region since the Russian military promised this week to intensify rocket attacks on the capital. Another bomber struck shortly after noon in front of a rally on Friday, killing at least 10 people and wounding dozens more. Kyiv was one of the many targets on Saturday. The office of the Ukrainian president reported rocket attacks and bombings in the last 24 hours in eight areas across the country. The governor of the Lviv region in western Ukraine, which has only been sporadically touched by the violence of the war, reported airstrikes in the region by Russian Su-35 aircraft taking off from neighboring Belarus. In apparent preparations for an attack on the east, the Russian army has intensified its bombardment of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, in recent days. Friday’s attack killed civilians and injured more than 50, the Ukrainian president’s office said. On Saturday, a bomb blast believed to have been triggered by rockets sent emergency workers to a nearby market in Kharkov, according to AP reporters at the scene. One person was killed and at least 18 were injured, according to rescue workers. “All the windows, all the furniture, all damaged. And the door, too “, said a surprised resident Valentina Ulianova. Nate Mook, a member of the NGO World Central Kitchen run by the famous chef José Andrés, tweeted that four workers in Kharkov were injured in a rocket attack. José Andrés wrote on Twitter that the staff members were anxious but safe. Austrian Chancellor Carl Nehammer, who met with Vladimir Putin last week in Moscow – the first European leader to do so since the invasion began on February 24 – said the Russian president was “in his own war logic” about Ukraine. In an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press”, Nehammer said he believed Putin believed he was winning the war and “we have to look him in the eye and face him with what we see in Ukraine.” Nehammer also said he met Putin with what he saw during a visit to Kiev’s Bucha suburb, where more than 350 bodies were found along with evidence of Russian-occupied killings and torture, and “it was not a friendly conversation.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in an interview with Ukrainian media that the ongoing siege of the southeastern city of Mariupol, which has cost the trapped and starving civilians dearly, could thwart negotiations to end it. “Destroying all our guys in Mariupol – what they are doing now – can put an end to any form of negotiation,” he said. The besieged port city is enduring, but the situation is critical, the Ukrainian president’s office said earlier. Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said on Saturday that Ukrainian forces had been driven out of most of the city and remained only in the huge Azovstal steel plant. The capture of Mariupol will allow Russian forces in the south, which came through the annexed Crimean peninsula, to fully connect with troops in the Donbas region, the eastern industrial heart of Ukraine. Zelensky estimated that 2,500 to 3,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed in the war and that about 10,000 had been wounded. The Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine announced on Saturday that at least 200 children were killed and more than 360 were injured. Russian forces have also captured about 700 Ukrainian soldiers and more than 1,000 civilians, Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine Iryna Vereshchuk said on Saturday. Ukraine holds about the same number of Russian troops as prisoners and intends to arrange an exchange, but demands the “unconditional” release of civilians, Verestsuk said. Russia’s warning of escalating attacks in Kyiv came after Russian authorities accused Ukraine on Thursday of injuring seven people and damaging about 100 homes in airstrikes in Bryansk, an area bordering Ukraine. Ukrainian officials have not confirmed targets in Russia. However, they claimed responsibility for the destruction of a key warship with missiles earlier this week. Moskva sank on Thursday after severe damage. Russia has not acknowledged any attack, saying only that a fire had exploded on the ship, but that the loss seemed to symbolize Moscow’s fate in an eight-week invasion that is widely regarded as a historic blunder. Russian Lt. Gen. Vladimir Frolov, whose troops were among those besieging Mariupol, was buried in St. Petersburg on Saturday after he died in battle, Governor Alexander Beglov said. Ukraine has said several Russian generals and dozens of other high-ranking officers have been killed in the war. The diplomatic rift between Russia and the West deepened on Saturday as Moscow barred British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and a dozen other senior British officials from entering the country in response to British sanctions. At the Vatican, Pope Francis on Saturday invoked “peace gestures these days marked by the horrors of war” during an Easter vigil in St. Peter’s Basilica attended by the mayor of the occupied Ukrainian city of Melitopol and three Ukrainians. Francis did not refer directly to the Russian invasion, but called, apparently in vain, for an Easter truce to achieve peace through negotiations.
