Kyiv said on Friday that Russian forces were advancing by up to 300 metres per day on the eastern front, after Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a warning to the West by firing a new hypersonic missile at Ukraine.
The Ukrainian parliament also shut down over heightened fears of a missile attack, a day after the strike on the Ukrainian city of Dnipro with a nuclear-capable missile.
The strike marked a serious escalation of Moscow’s 33-month invasion of Ukraine, sending the Russian ruble plunging on Friday to its lowest level against the US dollar since March 2022.
A source in the Ukrainian military said Russian forces were advancing by “200-300 metres a day” near the Ukrainian hub of Kurakhove in the eastern Donetsk region.
The source described the situation as “worse” than around the town of Pokrovsk, also a key prize for Russia.
The Kremlin said Friday that a hawkish address by Putin, in which he threatened to strike the West and said he was “ready for any scenario,” had been “understood” in the United States.
Putin had said Moscow reserved the right to strike countries that allow Kyiv to hit Russian territory with their weapons, after the US and the UK gave the green light for Kyiv to do so.
NATO and Ukrainian officials are due to meet Tuesday in Brussels to discuss the escalation, diplomatic sources told AFP.
In Kyiv, which is frequently targeted by Russian drones and missiles, parliament cancelled its usual Friday questions to the government over fears of a strike.
The central area where it is located houses the presidency, the central bank and other government buildings. It has until now been spared of bombings — unlike the rest of the capital — and access is strictly controlled by the army.
Several MPs said they were working remotely and that Friday’s session had been scrapped.
“There are signals of an increased risk of attacks on the government district in the coming days. Also in Kyiv and Ukraine in general,” MP Yevgenia Kravchuk told AFP.
– ‘Increased risk of attacks’ –
In Moscow meanwhile, Russian defence minister Andrei Belousov said Moscow’s advances in the war-battered eastern Ukraine had “accelerated” and also “ground down” Kyiv’s best units.
“We have, in fact, derailed the entire 2025 campaign,” Defence Minister Andrei Belousov said of Ukraine’s military strategy in a video published by the Russian defence ministry.
Russia later said its forces had “liberated” the frontline village of Novodmytrivka, about 10 kilometres (six miles) north of Kurakhove, an embattled civilian hub in the eastern Donetsk region that the Kremlin claims is part of Russia.
Observers of the conflict say Moscow and Kyiv are racing to gain battlefield advantages ahead of January 2025, when Donald Trump — who has vowed to end the war without saying how — is due to take office in the US.
Belousov spoke a day after Putin had addressed Russians, saying the war in Ukraine, which he launched on February 24 2022, had taken on “elements of a global character.”
Putin said Russia had hit Dnipro with a new type of ballistic missile called the Oreshnik and that Moscow could launch more such missiles depending on “the actions of the United States and its satellites.”
The attack, which apparently targeted an aerospace manufacturing plant in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro, sparked immediate condemnation from Kyiv’s allies.
– ‘Anything can happen’ –
It also shocked residents of Dnipro, which has suffered routine Russian bombardments throughout the invasion.
Yan Valetov, a writer from the area, said he heard a very “strong roar” and a “series of explosions”.
The roof of a boiler room supplying heating to a rehabilitation centre completely collapsed from the blast wave, while debris and tiles lay scattered around underfoot.
Boiler room worker Oleksandr Parkhomenko, 63, said he was relieved the missile left few casualties, but worried about what might come next.
“Anything can happen,” he said.
In the streets of Moscow, supporters of President Vladimir Putin voiced confidence in Russia’s victory.
“Russia will overcome everything… Nobody can defeat it,” said Alexei Peshcherkin, a 57-year-old plumber.
But Yulia Kim, a 52-year-old doctor, said: “I am worried that a nuclear war will start”.
– ‘Terrible escalation’ –
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Friday described Russia’s deployment of the medium-range missile as a “terrible escalation.”
The Russian attack came after Ukraine recently fired US- and UK-supplied missiles at Russian territory for the first time.
Washington said it had granted Kyiv permission to fire long-range weapons at Russian territory as a response to the Kremlin’s deployment of thousands of North Korean troops on Ukraine’s border.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called for a strong response from world leaders to Russia’s use of the new missile.
Russian strikes meanwhile killed at least two civilians in the eastern Ukrainian city of Sumy near the border with Russia and one person in the Donetsk region city of Kramatorksk, local authorities said.
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