Russia has renewed its strikes on Ukraine, killing three people including an eight-year-old girl, Ukrainian officials said on Friday. The attacks came a day after Ukraine launched its largest-ever drone attack on Moscow, which killed another eight-year-old girl and sparked a fire at a major oil refinery.
The Kremlin said on Friday it would “continue” striking Ukraine following that attack. Between late Thursday and early Friday, Russia launched 90 drones at Ukraine, according to the Ukrainian air force. “An eight-year-old girl was killed. Another person was wounded. These are the consequences of this morning’s enemy attack on Pavlohrad,” said Oleksandr Ganzha, governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region.
Separate Russian attacks on Ukraine’s southern Odesa region killed one person, while strikes on the eastern city of Kramatorsk killed one other. Ukrainian authorities also reported that Russian drone attacks late on Thursday killed one person and wounded five others on civilian ships in the Black Sea.
Both sides have escalated attacks in recent weeks, as US-led talks on ending the more than four-year conflict remain effectively frozen. Moscow region governor Andrei Vorobyov said on Friday that an eight-year-old girl had been killed in a massive Ukrainian drone attack that hit the capital and surrounding area a day earlier. “At the time of the incident, she was at home with her grandmother, who was unharmed,” he said.
The attack, using hundreds of drones, set fire to a large oil refinery in southeast Moscow for the second time in three days. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “Indeed, drone attacks continue. Appropriate measures are being taken to mitigate the consequences.” When asked if President Vladimir Putin had seen footage of the burning refinery, Peskov suggested reporters check images from Ukrainian cities struck by Russian forces.
The Kremlin acknowledged the Ukrainian strikes but claimed Moscow’s air defenses “were performing well” and that its own strikes on Ukraine were “impressive.” “These strikes [on Ukraine] will continue,” Peskov said. Ukraine insists its strikes on Russia are fair retaliation for attacks on its civilians. Ukraine’s military also struck railway bridges in Russian-occupied Crimea, used by Russian forces for military transport and supplies.
Source: www.aljazeera.com