Northern Ukraine Comes Under Burst of Russian Attacks Far From Front Lines; Cruise missile hit military base north of Kyiv, officials say
Thursday, July 28, 2022, 8:29 AM ET
By Ian Lovett and Evan Gershkovich
Wall Street Journal
KYIV, Ukraine—
Missiles and rockets rained down on northern Ukraine on Thursday morning, marking the first time in weeks that the Kyiv region, far from the fighting in the country’s east and south, has been hit.
A Kalibr cruise missile struck a military base in the Vyshgorod area, north of Kyiv, early Thursday morning, according to military officials. At least 20 rockets were fired from Belarus into northern Ukraine, according to Ukrainian officials. Nine hit the Chernihiv region, while air-defense systems took out others. Shells also hit the Kharkiv and Mykolaiv regions overnight, in Ukraine’s northeast and south respectively.
“Restless morning. Rocket terror again,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on Telegram on Thursday morning. “We will not be intimidated. Ukraine is an independent, free, indivisible state.”
Russian and Belarusian officials didn’t immediately comment on the strikes in northern Ukraine on Thursday.
The strike on the military base north of Kyiv destroyed one building and damaged two others, according to Oleksiy Gromov, a senior official with the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Another cruise missile was shot down, he said. No casualties were mentioned.
The missile strike ended a period of calm in the Kyiv region. Even as rocket attacks have become part of daily life near the fighting in the country’s south and east, the capital has returned to something resembling normalcy. Locals often take little note of the air-raid sirens, continuing to sip their coffee at sidewalk cafes as the warnings blare.
Oleksii Kuleba, governor of the Kyiv region, said the strike on Thursday was a reminder that the war wasn’t over, even in Kyiv.
“I urge you again, do not ignore the alarm signals—go down to the shelter,” he wrote on Telegram. “The war continues. The enemy continues to sneak missile strikes.”
Elsewhere, the Ukrainian military continues to gear up for a counteroffensive in the southern Kherson region, which Russian forces have occupied since the early weeks of the war. On Wednesday, Ukraine used Himars rocket systems to strike the Antonivsky bridge for the third time in 10 days. The bridge, which links Kherson with other Russian-held areas in southern Ukraine, has likely been rendered unusable by the strikes, according to the U.K. Defense Ministry.
Ukrainian forces have also damaged two other bridges the Russians use to resupply Kherson, British intelligence said Thursday, leaving Russia’s 49th army, on the west bank of the Dnipro River in the Kherson region, highly vulnerable.
“Kherson city, the most politically significant population center occupied by Russia, is now virtually cut off from the other occupied territories,” the ministry wrote on Twitter. “Its loss would severely undermine Russia’s attempts to paint the occupation as a success.”
The Russian-installed deputy head of the Kherson region, Kirill Stremousov, wrote on Telegram on Thursday that the region wasn’t targeted with strikes overnight and that authorities are focused on readying a referendum on becoming part of Russia.
In Russia, meanwhile, Sen. Andrei Klishas said that parliament’s main task this fall likely will be integrating captured Ukrainian territories into Russia, in comments posted to his Telegram channel Thursday.
In the east of Ukraine, Russian forces continued pushing toward the towns of Siversk and Bakhmut, as they moved to capture the remaining Ukrainian-held territory in the Donbas area.
Though Russian troops continue to seize territory, they appear only to be able to sustain two offensive operations in Ukraine at a time, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank.
“Russian forces have committed enough resources to conduct near-daily ground assaults and to seize territory on these two axes but have been unable to sustain a similar offensive operational tempo or to make similar territorial gains elsewhere in Ukraine,” the institute wrote Wednesday evening. “The Russian offensive, therefore, remains likely to culminate before seizing any other major urban areas in Ukraine.”
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday said he planned to speak directly in the coming days with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov for the first time since the start of the war. He said the U.S. had made a substantial proposal to free women’s basketball star Brittney Griner and another American, Paul Whelan, from Russian detention, but that the overture hasn’t been accepted and he would raise their cases. According to people familiar with the matter, the U.S. offered to release Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout in exchange.
On Thursday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that President Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin had previously discussed prisoner exchanges, but that “a concrete result has not yet been achieved.”
For his part, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Thursday that an agreement hasn’t yet been reached.
Mr. Lavrov, meanwhile, met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Uzbekistan’s capital, Tashkent, ahead of a multilateral meeting Friday. Mr. Lavrov told his counterpart that Moscow and Beijing have proved their friendship over the years, and that he believes the world is becoming multipolar, in remarks shown on Russian state television.
“This evolution is supported by many states, including Russia and China and most countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America, which are striving to pursue an independent policy,” he said.
Last year, months before the war began, Mr. Zelensky established a new holiday in Ukraine: the annual Day of Ukrainian Statehood, marked Thursday. At the time, he said, the day was to commemorate the founding of Kyiv more than 1,000 years ago, which he called the root of modern Ukraine.
Now, the day has become another symbol of the country’s fight for survival.
“It is very important not only to mark the emergence of statehood but unite for its preservation,” Mr. Zelensky said in a video posted on Telegram on Thursday. “We thought we had ruled in our land. We are laying down our souls and bodies to attain our freedom.”
Mr. Zelensky added that Ukraine “is the only legitimate heir to Kievan Rus,” in a comment that gets to the heart of the conflict.
Russia and Ukraine each claim to be the political heir of the Kievan Rus federation, the first eastern Slavic state, founded in the 11th century. In an essay last July, Mr. Putin wrote that Kievan Rus is proof that Russia and Ukraine are “one historical and spiritual space.”
In response to Mr. Zelensky, Ms. Zakharova, the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, hinted that Moscow is planning further land grabs in Ukraine.
“Prince Volodymyr, then don’t be offended that part of Ukraine will be called Rus,” she wrote on Telegram later Thursday. “You said it yourself.”
Write to Ian Lovett at
ian.lovett@wsj.com and Evan Gershkovich at
evan.gershkovich@wsj.com
Northern Ukraine Comes Under Burst of Russian Attacks Far From Front Lines - WSJ