Russia attacks Kyiv to retaliate sinking Russian warship

Kyiv, Apr 16: Russia pounded a Ukrainian rocket factory after losing an iconic warship in the Black Sea, as the Pentagon on Friday backed Kyiv's claim to have sunk the Moskva with cruise missiles.

 

 

 

The Vizar plant, near the capital's international airport, was seriously damaged in the overnight strikes, an AFP journalist saw.

 

 

 

Russia said it had used sea-based long-range missiles to hit the factory, which Ukraine's state weapons manufacturer says produced Neptune cruise missiles. "There were five hits. My employee was in the office and got thrown off his feet by the blast," Andrei Sizov, a 47-year-old owner of a nearby wood workshop, told AFP. "They are making us pay for destroying the Moskva," he said. It was the first major Russian strike around the Ukrainian capital in over two weeks. A Pentagon official briefing reporters said Ukraine had hit the Moskva with two Neptunes -- contradicting Russia's claim that the ship lost balance in rough seas as it was towed to port after ammunition exploded. The Moskva had been leading Russia's naval effort in the seven-week conflict, and the fate of its crew of over 500 was uncertain.

 

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The Pentagon official said survivors were observed being recovered by other Russian vessels, but Ukraine authorities said bad weather had made rescue operations impossible. The Russian fleet in the Black Sea has been blockading the besieged port city of Mariupol, where Russian officials say they are in full control although Ukrainian fighters are still holed up in the city's fortress-like steelworks. In the capital, Kyiv regional governor Oleksandr Pavliuk said there were at least two other Russian strikes on the city Friday, adding civilians thinking about returning should "wait for quieter times." Russian forces last month started withdrawing from around Kyiv as they were redeployed to focus on the east of the country, but the city remains vulnerable to missile strikes.

 

 

 

"The number and scale of missile strikes against targets in Kyiv will increase in response to any terrorist attacks or sabotage committed by the Kyiv nationalist regime on Russian territory," Russia's defence ministry vowed. President Volodymyr Zelensky warned Friday that Russia could even use nuclear weapons out of desperation as its invasion falters, echoing recent comments by CIA director William Burns. "They could do it, I mean they can," Zelensky told CNN. "For them, life of the people is nothing." Burns said that Russia's battlefield setbacks raised the risk that President Vladimir Putin could deploy a tactical or low-yield nuclear weapon to try to regain the initiative.