MM News

LONDON: Russia struck military targets in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv with high-precision cruise missiles, the Russian defence ministry said on Sunday.

Russia hit a fuel depot being used by Ukrainian forces near Lviv with long-range missiles and used cruise missiles to strike a plant in the city being used to repair anti-aircraft systems, radar stations and sights for tanks, the ministry said.

“The armed forces of the Russian Federation continue offensive actions as part of the special military operation,” the ministry’s spokesman Igor Konashenkov said in a statement.

The ministry showed video of the missile strikes in Lviv. Officials in Lviv, just 60 km from the border with NATO-member Poland, said people had been wounded in the missile attacks.

Russia also used sea-based long-range missiles to destroy an arsenal of S-300 missiles and BUK anti-aircraft missile systems near Kyiv, the ministry said. Russian forces also destroyed a number of drones, it said.

Russia has started destroying Ukrainian fuel and food storage depots, meaning the government will have to disperse the stocks of both in the near future, Ukrainian Interior Ministry adviser Vadym Denysenko said on Sunday.

Ukraine’s military intelligence chief said on Sunday said Russia wants to split Ukraine into two, as happened with North and South Korea. “In fact, it is an attempt to create North and South Korea in Ukraine,” Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukrainian military intelligence, said in a statement, referring to the division of Korea after World War Two.

He predicted Ukraine’s army would push back Russian forces. “In addition, the season of a total Ukrainian guerrilla safari will soon begin. Then there will be one relevant scenario left for the Russians, how to survive,” he said.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy urged the West to give Ukraine tanks, planes and missiles to help fend off the Russian forces, which the Kyiv government said were increasingly targeting fuel and food depots.