乌克兰基辅-俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔·普京对西方发出新的警告,反对向朝鲜发射远程火箭系统乌克兰当时他的部队声称,在一个多月来对乌克兰首都的首次此类空袭中,他们摧毁了西方的军事物资。
这次袭击表明,俄罗斯仍然有能力和意愿打击乌克兰的心脏,尽管它重新将精力集中在夺取东部领土上。
普京是在周日播出的一次电视采访中发表上述言论的。几天前,美国宣布计划向乌克兰提供7亿美元的安全援助,包括四套精确制导的中程火箭系统,以及直升机、标枪反坦克系统、雷达、战术车辆等。
“在我看来,围绕额外交付武器的所有这些大惊小怪只有一个目标:尽可能延长武装冲突,”普京说。他坚称,此类供应不太可能改变乌克兰政府的军事形势,他表示,这只是在弥补类似火箭的损失。
普京补充说,如果基辅获得远程火箭,莫斯科将“得出适当的结论,并使用我们拥有的大量摧毁手段,以打击那些我们尚未打击的物体。”美国已经停止向乌克兰提供射程可以深入俄罗斯的远程武器。
军事分析人士说,俄罗斯希望在任何可能扭转局势的美国武器到来之前,占领乌克兰陷入困境的东部工业顿巴斯地区。五角大楼上周表示,将美国武器运上战场至少需要三周时间。自2014年以来,俄罗斯支持的分裂分子一直在顿巴斯与乌克兰政府作战。
莫斯科还指责西方关闭了沟通渠道,迫使俄罗斯外长拉夫罗夫的飞机取消了周一前往塞尔维亚的会谈行程。
俄罗斯新闻机构报道,外交部发言人玛丽亚·扎哈罗娃告诉意大利电视台,塞尔维亚的邻国对拉夫罗夫的飞机关闭了领空。当天早些时候,塞尔维亚报纸Vecernje Novosti曾表示,保加利亚,北马其顿和黑山将不允许拉夫罗夫的飞机通过。
“这是另一个封闭的沟通渠道,”扎哈罗娃说。
俄罗斯国防部在Telegram应用上表示,周日袭击乌克兰首都基辅的导弹摧毁了东欧国家供应的T-72坦克和其他装甲车。
然而,乌克兰称导弹击中了一家火车修理厂。乌克兰铁路当局带领记者在导游的带领下参观了基辅东部的维修厂,据说该厂被四枚导弹击中。当局表示,那里没有存放任何军事装备,美联社记者在该设施被毁的建筑中没有看到任何残余。
"没有坦克,你可以亲眼目睹这一点."乌克兰总统办公室顾问Serhiy Leshchenko说。
然而,一名政府顾问在国家电视台上表示,军事基础设施也是目标。美联社记者在被摧毁的铁路车辆工厂附近看到一栋建筑在燃烧。该地区的两名居民表示,冒出滚滚浓烟的仓库式建筑是一个坦克维修设施的一部分。封锁现场的警察告诉美联社记者,军事当局已经禁止在那里拍照。
俄罗斯国防部还表示,空中发射的精确导弹被用于摧毁乌克兰东部顿涅茨克地区(包括德鲁日基夫卡)的车间,这些车间正在修复受损的乌克兰军事装备。乌克兰总参谋部表示,俄罗斯军队从里海向基辅发射了五枚X-22巡航导弹,其中一枚被防空部队摧毁。另外四枚导弹击中了“基础设施”,但乌克兰表示没有人员伤亡。
在周日凌晨的袭击之前,自联合国秘书长安东尼奥·古特雷斯(antónio guter RES)4月28日访问基辅以来,基辅没有遇到过任何这样的俄罗斯空袭。
俄罗斯军队仍然专注于占领乌克兰东部城市Sievierodonetsk和Lysychansk。在这些城市的西部,在Sloviansk和Bakhmut镇,可以看到汽车和军车从前线方向快速驶入城镇。数十名军医和护理救护车努力疏散平民和乌克兰军人,其中许多人在炮击中受伤。
英国军方在其每日情报更新中表示,乌克兰在Sieverodonetsk的反击“可能会削弱俄罗斯军队此前通过集中作战部队和火力获得的作战势头。”俄罗斯军队已经在这座城市取得了一系列进展,但乌克兰武装人员在最近几天进行了反击。
声明还称,俄罗斯军方部分依赖卢甘斯克分裂分子的后备力量。
“这些部队装备差,训练差,与俄罗斯常规部队相比缺乏重型装备,”情报更新称,并补充说,此举“表明希望限制俄罗斯常规部队的伤亡。”
在其他发展方面:
——在亚速海港口马里乌波尔,一名市长助理表示,被腐烂的尸体和垃圾污染的水源正在引发痢疾,并对霍乱和其他疾病构成威胁。俄罗斯声称,马里乌波尔是在经过一个月的围困后,于今年5月占领的。在乌克兰Unian新闻社的评论中,Petro Andriushchenko说,控制这座城市的俄罗斯当局已经实施了隔离。他的报告无法得到独立证实。
——乌克兰总统沃洛季米尔·泽伦斯基(Volodymyr Zelenskyy)前往东南部的扎波里日亚地区,该地区部分处于俄罗斯控制之下。他收到了一份战斗报告,感谢了军队并会见了难民,这是自战争开始以来他第二次在基辅地区以外的地方公开访问。
—西班牙日报《国家报》(El Pais)报道称,西班牙计划向乌克兰提供防空导弹和多达40辆豹2 A4主战坦克。西班牙国防部没有对该报道发表评论。
——在远离战场的地方,乌克兰国家足球队错失了世界杯参赛资格,在加的夫一场情绪激动的比赛中以0比1输给了威尔士。在国内,一些乌克兰人聚集在酒吧观看比赛。
Putin warns West against sending arms; Kyiv hit by missiles
KYIV, Ukraine --Russian President Vladimir Putin's new warning to the West against sending longer-range rocket systems toUkrainecame as his forces claimed to have destroyed Western military supplies in their first such airstrikes on Ukraine's capital in more than a month.
The attack showed that Russia still had the capability and willingness to hit at Ukraine’s heart, despite refocusing its efforts to capture territory in the east.
Putin's comments, in a TV interview that aired Sunday, came days after the U.S. announced plans to deliver $700 million of security assistance for Ukraine, including four precision-guided, medium-range rocket systems, as well as helicopters, Javelin anti-tank systems, radars, tactical vehicles and more.
“All this fuss around additional deliveries of weapons, in my opinion, has only one goal: to drag out the armed conflict as much as possible,” Putin said. He insisted such supplies were unlikely to change the military situation for Ukraine’s government, which he said was merely making up for losses of similar rockets.
If Kyiv gets longer-range rockets, Putin added, Moscow will “draw appropriate conclusions and use our means of destruction, which we have plenty of, in order to strike at those objects that we haven’t yet struck.”
The U.S. has stopped short of offering Ukraine longer-range weapons that could fire deep into Russia.
Military analysts say Russia hopes to overrun Ukraine’s embattled eastern industrial Donbas region before the arrival of any U.S. weapons that might turn the tide. The Pentagon said last week that it will take at least three weeks to get the U.S. weapons onto the battlefield. Russia-backed separatists have fought the Ukrainian government since 2014 in the Donbas.
Moscow also accused the West of closing off lines of communication by forcing Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s plane to cancel a trip to Serbia for talks Monday.
Serbia’s neighbors closed their airspace to Lavrov’s plane, ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told Italian television in comments reported by Russian news agencies. Earlier in the day, Serbian newspaper Vecernje Novosti had said that Bulgaria, North Macedonia and Montenegro would not allow Lavrov’s plane to come through.
“This is another closed channel of communication,” Zakharova said.
The missiles that struck Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, on Sunday destroyed T-72 tanks supplied by Eastern European countries and other armored vehicles, the Russian Defense Ministry said on the Telegram app.
Ukraine, however, said the missiles hit a train repair shop. Ukraine’s railway authority led reporters on a guided tour of the repair plant in eastern Kyiv that it said was hit by four missiles. The authority said no military equipment had been stored there, and Associated Press reporters saw no remnants of any in the facility’s destroyed building.
“There were no tanks, and you can just be witness to this.” said Serhiy Leshchenko, an adviser to the Ukrainian president’s office.
Yet a government adviser said on national TV that military infrastructure also was targeted. AP reporters saw a building burning in an area near the destroyed railcar plant. Two residents of that district said the warehouse-type structure that billowed smoke was part of a tank-repair facility. Police blocking access to the site told an AP reporter that military authorities had banned the taking of images there.
The Russian Defense Ministry also said air-launched precision missiles were used to destroy workshops in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, including in Druzhkivka, that were repairing damaged Ukrainian military equipment.
And Ukraine’s General Staff said Russian forces fired five X-22 cruise missiles from the Caspian Sea toward Kyiv, and one was destroyed by air defenses. Four other missiles hit “infrastructure facilities,” but Ukraine said there were no casualties.
Before Sunday’s early morning attack, Kyiv had not faced any such Russian airstrikes since the April 28 visit of U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres.
Russian forces remained focused on capturing Ukraine’s eastern cities of Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk. West of those cities, in the towns of Sloviansk and Bakhmut, cars and military vehicles were seen speeding into town from the direction of the front line. Dozens of military doctors and paramedic ambulances worked to evacuate civilians and Ukrainian servicemen, many of whom had been hurt by artillery shelling.
The U.K. military said in its daily intelligence update that Ukrainian counterattacks in Sieverodonetsk were “likely blunting the operational momentum Russian forces previously gained through concentrating combat units and firepower.” Russian forces had been making a string of advances in the city, but Ukrainian fighters have pushed back in recent days.
The statement also said Russia’s military was partly relying on reserve forces of Luhansk separatists.
“These troops are poorly equipped and trained, and lack heavy equipment in comparison to regular Russian units,” the intelligence update said, adding that the move “indicates a desire to limit casualties suffered by regular Russian forces.”
In other developments:
— In the Azov Sea port of Mariupol, which Russia claimed to have captured in May after a monthslong siege, a mayoral aide said water supplies contaminated by decomposing corpses and garbage were causing dysentery and posing a threat of cholera and other diseases. In remarks carried by Ukraine’s Unian news agency, Petro Andriushchenko said Russian authorities controlling the city have imposed a quarantine. His report could not be independently confirmed.
— Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy traveled to the Zaporizhzhia region in the southeast, which is partly under Russian control. He received a battle report, thanked troops and met with refugees in what was only his second public visit outside the Kyiv area since the war began.
— The Spanish daily El Pais reported that Spain planned to supply anti-aircraft missiles and up to 40 Leopard 2 A4 battle tanks to Ukraine. Spain’s Ministry of Defense did not comment on the report.
— And far from the battlefield, Ukraine’s national soccer players missed out on qualifying for a World Cup spot, losing 1-0 to Wales in an emotionally charged match in Cardiff. Back home, some Ukrainians gathered in bars to watch the game.