Russian forces once again attacked Ukraine with drones Falling debris caused fires in residential buildings in the Kyiv region and a crater was formed in the Lviv region RBC-Ukraine gathered all the details about the aftermath of the nighttime Shahed drone raid the enemy used 58 strike UAVs of the Shahed type and various types of decoy drones during the attack The aerial attack was countered by anti-aircraft missile forces Ukrainian defenders shot down 25 drones in the Sumy Another 27 enemy decoy drones lost their localization and effectiveness According to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy rescue operations in the Kyiv region continued throughout the night after the Shahed strikes "Buildings in Brovary and Hlevakha were damaged three people were killed — my condolences to their families and loved ones There are injured individuals who are receiving the necessary assistance," Zelenskyy said He emphasized that accountability is needed for every component used in the production of Shaheds and missiles supplied in circumvention of sanctions "Russia wouldn't be able to wage war at all if its allies were truly limited in their ability to support this terror and these assaults on the frontlines," the president added debris from UAVs fell on a 10-story residential building This caused a fire and structural damage on the 6th and 7th floors About 150 residents were evacuated from the building A man injured in the incident was rescued from the 6th floor using a ladder truck He was handed over to medical workers with burns A woman trapped in her apartment on the 9th floor was also rescued Photo: rescue operation in Hlevakha in a 10-story building (facebook.com/MNS.GOV.UA) Rescue workers found the body of a man born in 1988 while extinguishing the fire in the 10-story building A family medicine clinic and two apartment buildings were also damaged in the same town Photo: a fire raged on several floors of a building in Hlevakha (t.me/UA_National_Police) 49 personnel and 13 units of equipment are working at the site Psychologists have been engaged to provide psychological support An “points of invincibility” has been deployed Photo: The National Police showed the consequences of the attack in Hlevakha (t.me/UA_National_Police) rescuers discovered the body of a man born in 1966 Photo: A two-story house burned down in Brovary killing a couple (facebook.com/MNS.GOV.UA) The fire was extinguished by 4:14 AM Kyiv time over 120 square meters Photo: a two-story house in Brovary was destroyed as a result of an enemy attack (t.me/Igor_Sapozhko) the nighttime attack in the Kyiv region damaged 11 apartments and 8 private homes a private house and car were damaged in one of the villages in the Lviv district Windows and doors of the house were shattered and a 4-meter-diameter crater formed nearby Photo: A crater formed in a village near Lviv as a result of a drone crash (t.me/andriysadovyi) it was revealed that the affected house was located in the village of Pidbirtsi Local authorities noted that this same house had been hit back in 2022 partially damaged the roof and rooms inside Photo: a house in the village of Pidbirtsi damaged by the attack (t.me/andriysadovyi) the occupiers struck private homes in one of the villages in the Korukivka district Photo: the aftermath of a drone attack in Chernihiv region (t.me/chernigivskaODA) Explosions were also reported overnight in the Cherkasy region Air defense forces successfully intercepted 12 Russian drones Preliminary reports indicate that the attack caused no damage to infrastructure air defense forces shot down 5 Shahed drones in the Khmelnytskyi region Authorities are determining the locations of the debris No reports of casualties or damage have been received from the region Russians attack Ukraine daily with Shaheds and decoy drones This not only terrorizes the civilian population but also aims to exhaust Ukraine's air defense systems As recently calculated by British intelligence, various factors may affect the monthly launch rates, either increasing or decreasing them. However, there is a likelihood that Russia can sustain launch levels of at least 1,500 per month. Sources: data from the State Emergency Service statements by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy Acting Head of Kyiv Regional Military Administration Mykola Kalashnyk Foreign Affairs has been the leading forum for serious discussion of American foreign policy and global affairs The magazine has featured contributions from many leading international affairs experts Nataliya Gumenyuk the situation Ukraine faces after three years of full-scale war with Russia seems clear Moscow has intensified its assault on civilian populations and bombs in almost daily attacks on cities across the country Infrastructure and power stations have been relentlessly targeted and millions more who fled the country after 2022 have been unable to return Even as Ukraine has struggled to hold the frontlines its soldiers continue to be injured and killed Given these mounting costs, and that Ukraine has managed to defend 80 percent of its territory one might expect its citizens to support any effort to end the war That would be sensible in the eyes of many Western analysts Just as Russia seems unlikely to make major new advances it will also be very difficult for Ukrainian forces contending with an enemy that is prepared to burn through huge quantities of ammunition and manpower to recapture all the territory now controlled by Russia securing a cease-fire and bringing relief to the bulk of the country should be a top priority And many Ukrainians themselves are deeply skeptical of a settlement saying that no deal is better than a bad deal Kyiv’s determination to keep fighting—sometimes in grueling months-long battles to defend ruined towns and villages—may seem irrational Ukrainians’ continued support for the war can be explained by the country’s resilience Despite intense pressure on civilian areas Ukraine has managed to preserve and even rebuild a degree of normalcy in everyday life Following the economic shock of the initial invasion which now makes up 20 percent of Ukraine’s GDP has allowed the economy to grow by an average of 4.4 percent over the past two years; there has been real household income growth when Ukrainian drones had effectively neutralized Russia’s Black Sea Fleet with Ukrainian exports up by 15 percent over the past year some 40 percent of the weapons Ukraine is using on the frontlines are now produced domestically None of these changes take away from the extraordinary hardships of war but they have helped give Ukrainian society a kind of adaptability and endurance that may not be fully visible to outsiders But even more central to Ukrainian thinking about the war are the powerful and complex effects of the Russian occupation the occupation did not begin with the full-scale invasion in 2022 but has been an ongoing reality for more than a decade—ever since Moscow seized Crimea and parts of the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine in 2014 The horror of Russian military rule has been felt not only in areas of the south and east but also near Kyiv in the opening weeks of the 2022 invasion when Russian forces committed widespread atrocities in the capital’s suburbs Ukrainians understand that the threat goes well beyond the occupied areas themselves In addition to the six million who are caught in these areas it has affected millions of displaced people who had to move farther west including members of the Ukrainian cabinet who have relatives living under Russian domination what observers in the West have characterized as brutal excesses in occupied areas—human rights abuses and war crimes—are in fact a central part of Russia’s war strategy The issue is not merely what happens to those under Russian rule but how Moscow has used its control of significant numbers of Ukrainians to undermine the stability of the whole country Nor is this a hypothetical threat: as Ukrainians know too well used the eight years of so-called frozen conflict with Ukraine after 2014 to create a launch pad for the larger invasion Russian control over any part of Ukraine subverts and corrodes Ukrainian sovereignty everywhere The Trump administration’s calls for a cease-fire have stoked speculation about negotiations to freeze the conflict along or near the current frontlines. Such a plan, of course, will need Russia’s participation—and as of early 2025, there was little sign that Russian President Vladimir Putin was prepared to enter such talks the assumption that a cease-fire will end Russia’s primary threat to Ukrainians misunderstands the nature of the conflict In the three years since the full-scale invasion Ukrainians have overwhelmingly supported the Ukrainian army They have done so out of a strong sense of patriotism but also because they know there is little chance of survival under Moscow’s rule most Ukrainians see continuing to fight as incomparably better than the terror of Russian occupation failure to recognize how Russia is using Ukrainian territory to undermine and destabilize the whole country risks making a cease-fire even more costly than war With its seizures of land in 2014, Russia gained around seven percent of Ukrainian territory, containing some three million people. Since 2022, Russia has nearly tripled the Ukrainian land in its control this included about 80 percent of the Donbas and nearly 75 percent of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions but it is estimated that around six million people—more than one-tenth of Ukraine’s total population—are now living under Russian rule And this is despite the fact that many more from these areas who were able have fled Within this large occupied territory are a variety of local situations Areas of eastern Donbas that were occupied a decade ago have long been run by Moscow-controlled separatist militias and have been neglected and isolated local men from these areas were among the first to be mobilized by Russia and they have suffered some of the highest casualty rates Other areas close to the Russian border or to the southern coast were taken during the first weeks of the invasion almost without a fight and Moscow was able to quickly establish military rule People in these areas suffered less from bombings and mass destruction but many of them have been physically and psychologically coerced The Russian government also targeted these regions for large-scale resettlement by Russians who have been brought to showcase Russian conquest communities close to the frontlines have weathered the full brunt of the war When Russian forces are unable to capture or occupy a town or village forcing residents to flee and Ukrainian troops to withdraw which were the sites of devastating battles but they are ghost towns that have been largely reduced to rubble the main problem is not the amount of territory in Russian hands although Russia has made modest gains around the frontlines over the past year the overall area under its domination has not changed much since late 2022 the threat comes from the way Russian forces and Russian authorities have imposed control over local populations and how they are using it to further Moscow’s war aims Russia has imposed a reign of terror on the towns and villages it has captured residents in Russian-controlled areas were not allowed to leave their homes and many of those who tried to flee were shot dead in their vehicles Russian forces often used Ukrainians as human shields forcing civilians to stay in place so that the Ukrainian army wouldn’t shoot back many local populations struggled to survive The occupiers cut off Ukrainian Internet and cellular networks and replaced them with Russian ones; it is one of the fastest ways to prevent people in occupied territory from contacting and getting information from the rest of Ukraine They also set up a so-called filtration process to “register” Ukrainians—a practice Russia had introduced in the first Chechen war 30 years ago Russian forces used the process to identify and detain potentially “disloyal” people—especially men of military age who had tried to flee Russian forces have continued to use filtration in occupied towns and regions and along the Russian border they have detained Ukrainians based on nothing more than flimsy allegations about their allegiances or political views accusing them of having deleted compromising information In areas whose population centers have remained more intact residents have faced a different kind of coercion Ukrainians heard reports that Russian officials had compiled lists of people who were to be detained and executed; Russian actions soon proved that the lists were real Particularly targeted are Ukrainians who have served in the military and members of their families Also at risk are mayors or community leaders whom the occupiers see as key sources of local information the Russians have turned to possible collaborators or simply created a regime of fear Take the village of Sofiivka and its surrounding area an administrative district near the Sea of Azov that the Russians controlled for the first year and a half after the invasion About 40 of its residents have been detained by the Russian occupying authorities; one was allegedly tortured to death and three are still being held: two since November 2022 and the third since June 2023 The mayor of the district spent 34 days in a nearby Russian detention center before managing to flee But virtually any person suspected of having pro-Ukrainian views or even just past connections to Ukrainian institutions may be fair game the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine has registered more than 150,000 violations of the Geneva Conventions by Russian forces since 2022 an initiative I co-founded that researches war crimes in Ukraine has gathered more than 500 testimonies of such crimes since the war began many of them describing the systematic practice of abduction These forms of violence have been documented in all areas seized by Russian troops from the initial phases of the war up to the past year The consistent pattern suggests these are not a result of excesses by particular Russian units but rather Russian state policy a city of some 100,000 people in the Zaporizhzhia region that was taken in the opening weeks of the war and local councilors—all but a few were over 50 Even the slightest past affiliation with the Ukrainian state can have extreme consequences These accumulating horrors are not just a problem for those who have fallen under Russian rule They stand as a warning to the populations of the Ukrainian cities of Odesa and Kharkiv Although most of Ukraine’s largest cities did not fall under Russian control Russian forces were extremely close to the capital at the start of the war or friends who were caught up in the occupation during which more than 4.6 million people have been internally displaced it is hard to find someone who does not have relatives or friends who experienced filtration or fled Russian-controlled areas Given how visceral the experience of occupation is for the general population it is unsurprising that many Ukrainians feel that fighting is still better than the kind of peace likely on offer in any negotiation with Russia Ukrainians also know that Russia’s current war was in crucial ways enabled by its annexation of Crimea and occupation of eastern Ukraine in 2014 Reporting on life in Crimea after the Russian takeover and laws to further much larger military and strategic aims Ukrainians who refused to take a Russian passport were denied medical aid and Russian authorities would not recognize their ownership of private property residents needed to demonstrate a particular level of income People faced numerous penalties for minor infractions such as failing to renew an identification document such administrative violations can be designated as criminal offenses and can lead to the revocation of residency permits The overall effect was to make anyone in Crimea who retained a Ukrainian passport suspicious a region that had for decades served as a subtropical tourist resort was slowly transformed into a vast military base Russia poured huge investments into “civilian” infrastructure but clearly had other purposes in mind The highway from the administrative capital of Crimea to the seashore was built without exits: it didn’t help the residents from nearby towns get to the beach but it was well suited for moving military vehicles was ostensibly designed for civilians traveling between the newly annexed peninsula and Russia but it was even more important as a way to send tanks (It was for this reason that Ukraine’s attacks on the bridge since 2022 have been a crucial part of the war effort.) Systematic efforts were also made to militarize the Crimean population and any references to the Ukrainian past were erased the All-Russian Military Patriotic Social Movement known as “the Young Army,” became a way to indoctrinate Crimean youth and prepare them for military service the movement was used to “reeducate” Ukrainian children who had been abducted and transferred to Russia after 2022—a process that led the International Criminal Court to issue an arrest warrant for Putin and a member of his government in 2023.) Although the Geneva Conventions forbid drafting an occupied population for military service just as it did those of Donbas territories Crimean Tatars—members of an indigenous Muslim minority known for its resistance to Russian rule—were targeted disproportionately for obligatory military service Local people who spoke against this process were silenced more than 220 people have been detained for political reasons since 2014 who were charged with extremism following Moscow’s crackdown on Islamic fundamentalism the deputy chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People a representative body for Crimean Tatars that was officially outlawed by Moscow in 2016 Dzhelyal is known as a careful and law-abiding intellectual but six months before Russia’s full-scale invasion he was arrested on trumped-up charges of being involved in a conspiracy to blow up a gas pipeline in a village near Simferopol hardly anyone left in Crimea could oppose Russia’s preparations for military invasion and other independent members of civil society were all behind bars For years after 2014, the Russian government was equally adept at manipulating the outside world. By participating in the Minsk agreements, the negotiations that were supposedly aimed at a peace settlement for the Donbas after 2014, Russian officials could distract from Moscow’s activities in Crimea and eastern Ukraine who from 2014 to 2019 led the negotiations with Russia recalls a meeting in which Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in the presence of French and German diplomats despite what was written in the agreement and what they were ostensibly negotiating “Moscow would never allow having really open elections in the occupied territories and that’s not what the Kremlin wants.” In retrospect there was never a point when Putin truly wanted a peace deal Russia has rapidly imposed the occupation strategies it perfected in Crimea the Kremlin quickly drew on its Crimean toolkit imposing rules governing access to health care and jobs and regulating taxes despite the area’s location in the Eastern European Time zone By requiring occupied populations to accept Russian passports the Kremlin has also exerted a form of psychological coercion: if they try to go back to Ukraine they may face criminal charges for working for Russian companies Ukraine may prosecute its citizens for serving an occupying administration or Russian militia but not for receiving services from occupation authorities But the Kremlin has used disinformation to spread the fear of punishment.) the Kremlin promised new prosperity for occupied lands: better wages and pensions and free health care and higher education received billions of dollars of Russian subsidies to showcase the annexation much of the funding went to vast state projects and to people who were dispatched from Russia the Kremlin is no longer promising any wealth simply avoiding arrest or having your property expropriated is now considered lucky In a situation in which the economy has been destroyed banning the use of Ukrainian currency (and hence often cutting people off from the bulk of their savings) is another form of pressure the only thing they have left are their houses and they may feel compelled to remain under occupation to keep them Russian authorities seized numerous apartments and houses of people who had fled Moscow has also sent tens of thousands of Russians to settle in occupied cities and towns as many as 800,000 Russians were relocated to Crimea and these settlers now constitute a full third of the population there this kind of relocation has been happening in numerous other areas the purpose of sending in these settlers is not merely to provide resources for Russia’s war effort but also to integrate these towns into Russia and erase any traces of Ukrainian identity a city in the Luhansk region that was seized by Russian forces in the summer of 2022 A major twentieth-century industrial center it was founded in 1958 around one of the largest chemical plants in Europe and had a population of around 100,000 when the war began According to the Sievierodonetsk Media Crisis Center although only about half the people are locals but those that were less damaged have been repainted in bright colors and sewer system have been partially rebuilt; the fixed-up areas are now home mainly to Russian workers and members of the Russian military and their families The city’s privately owned real estate has been re-registered with its pleasant climate and attractive landscape partially destroyed towns such as Sievierodonetsk offer comparatively few attractions Local services are limited: the Russian authorities offer free Russian satellite TV but after two and a half years of occupation the Internet and cellular networks have not yet been restored requiring residents to use street pay phones the pinewoods surrounding the town burned down in a wildfire because of a shortage of firefighters Although the authorities have talked about reopening the town’s chemical plant much of its equipment has been stripped and taken as scrap material or transferred to Russia (The practice of harvesting metal from Ukrainian factories and equipment became common across the entire Donbas region after 2014.) the once thriving port city on the Sea of Azov that until the invasion began boasted a population of 540,000 Russian forces unleashed an exceptionally brutal siege on the city and forcing all who remained into basements some 95 percent of the city had been destroyed and according to an investigation by Human Rights Watch Ukrainian officials estimate that as few as 90,000 of the city’s residents remained Moscow has heavily promoted the destroyed city to Russian settlers claiming that the population has risen again to 240,000 clips from a Russian state television documentary about Mariupol’s new real estate market went viral Designed as a PR film to promote the Russian reconstruction of the city the documentary shows a Russian journalist casually walking through a residential unit in a bombed-out building—what the documentary refers to as a razrushka “little wrecked apartment”—and talking with local real estate agents who offer her the chance to invest in the abandoned ruins stepping over the belongings left behind by fleeing Ukrainians while a cheerful voice speaks about a marvelous view from the balcony VIP apartments that have already been repaired and only people coming from “Greater Russia” can afford them One agent complains that “there are not many survivors per square meter,” and those locals who have survived can’t afford new housing The compensation paid by Russia to a Mariupol resident for the destruction is $350 per square meter But people who lived downtown and whose houses were demolished won’t have a chance to move back even if a new building is being constructed on the same site a British international human rights lawyer who has testified before the UN Security Council on abuses in Syria and who serves as chief legal counsel for The Reckoning Project Russian occupation practices follow a deliberate strategy Russian rule is designed to instill fear among local residents compelling them to either flee or support Moscow the occupiers enforce policies that are aimed at altering the demographic and societal fabric of these regions paving the way for more land grabs in the future They also push forward Putin’s larger project of progressively eroding the foundations of Ukraine itself: not only by damaging the economy and blocking crucial supply chains but also by separating families and continually destabilizing the rest of the country with the threat of new invasion In comments and social media posts during his campaign and in the run-up to his inauguration Trump called for a rapid agreement between Russia and Ukraine to end the war Western experts have also argued that Kyiv should agree to freeze the frontline and accept the loss of the territories and people now under Russian control Ukraine’s government and military leadership respond that if they were simply given more sophisticated weapons including ones that would allow strikes against Russian command-and-control centers Ukraine might not be able to restore its full territorial integrity but it could push Russian forces farther away even many of those who view Ukraine’s ambition to restore its full territorial integrity as a matter of upholding international law and principle see the goal as out of touch with reality Joseph Stalin made a speech hailing the “screws of the immense machine of the government.” The screws were the Soviet people which in Stalin’s eyes were replaceable material at the state’s disposal erasing the slightest traces of Ukrainian statehood and indoctrinating the people through propaganda and terror are ways to create more “screws” for his permanent war almost any form of resistance was impossible because of the pervasive presence of agents of the FSB It seemed as if the local population had completely embraced annexation These remarkable acts of defiance show that the opposition is conditioned not only on the strength of Russia’s security apparatus—in fact the Russian state has become even more oppressive since the war began—but also on the extent to which people themselves believe that the current state of affairs is not permanent and that things might change Although Russian forces occupied the Ukrainian city of Kherson for nine months and it became clear that the occupying institutions they had set up had utterly failed to Russify the local population But many more Ukrainian areas remain firmly in Russian hands and Ukraine has few positive messages to deliver to the people in these areas beyond hoping for the best must understand that allowing Russia to occupy and rule over a huge area of Ukraine that it has taken by force is not just a violation of every international norm but also dangerous to global stability Allowing Moscow to make its occupation permanent as the price for stopping the current fighting would simply make the war even more violent in the future Polling by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology found that between early October and December of last year the share of Ukrainians who said they were ready to make some territorial concessions to end the war has increased from 32 to 38 percent But 51 percent still opposed any such concessions focusing on this question misses the point that for most Ukrainians the amount of land that Putin controls matters less than the way Russia has turned the occupation into a weapon of war The crucial issue is about the security guarantees that will be required to neutralize this weapon and preserve Ukrainian sovereignty Ukraine might be able to consider a deal to end the war if, for example, it were offered membership in NATO given enough sophisticated weapons to defend itself in the future and received from the West all the financing it needed for reconstruction But until Washington and its European allies provide those kinds of guarantees and until the West recognizes that Russia’s occupation is really aimed at the rest of Ukraine Ukrainians are likely to stay committed to the war And if a cease-fire is reached that does not address this continuing Russian threat lasting peace and stability will remain elusive Subscribe to Foreign Affairs to get unlimited access Already a subscriber? Sign In Juzel Lloyd A. Wess Mitchell Alexander Gabuev Alexander Cooley Rose Gottemoeller Michael McFaul and Evan S. Medeiros Ivo H. Daalder and James M. Lindsay Tong Zhao Zongyuan Zoe Liu Anne Neuberger Liana Fix and Michael Kimmage * Note that when you provide your email address, the Foreign Affairs Privacy Policy and Terms of Use will apply to your newsletter subscription Published by The Council on Foreign Relations Privacy Policy Terms of Use From the publishers of  Foreign Affairs This website uses cookies to improve your experience You can opt-out of certain cookies using the cookie management page * Note that when you provide your email address, the Foreign Affairs Privacy Policy and Terms of Use will apply to your newsletter subscription reacts inside her destroyed house after a Russian rocket attack in Hlevakha People gather in a subway station being used as a bomb shelter during a Russian rocket attack in Kyiv Men are seen through a smashed window of a damaged truck following a rocket attack in Kyiv A man stands at a site of a rocket attack in Kyiv People wait on a street blocked by police after a rocket attack in Kyiv A woman stands on top of a crater next to a destroyed house after a Russian rocket attack in Hlevakha People gather in the subway station being used as a bomb shelter during a rocket attack in Kyiv Luhansk People’s Republic people militia servicemen stand at an exhibition of captured Ukrainian tanks and weapons in Lisichansk on the territory which is under the Government of the control The West’s move to send tanks to Ukraine was greeted enthusiastically from Kyiv The Kremlin has warned the West that supplying tanks would be a dangerous escalation of the conflict and denounced the decision People clean a destroyed residential area after a Russian rocket attack in Hlevakha A man walk in a destroyed residential area after a Russian rocket attack in Hlevakha Electrician worker checks damages at a power plant after a rocket attack in Kyiv Ukraine (AP) — Russia fired more missiles and self-exploding drones at nearly a dozen Ukrainian provinces early Thursday causing the first war-related death in Kyiv this year and killing at least 11 people overall The spokesperson for Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said that in addition to the dead at least 11 people were wounded The regional prosecutor’s office in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia province said three people were killed and seven injured in a strike on an energy facility said Thursday’s volley involved a total of 55 missiles Self-exploding drones swept in overnight before the missile strikes As air raid sirens echoed across the country underground parking lots and basements to seek shelter It was the first such barrage of Russian firepower across the country since Jan Ukrainian Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko acknowledged that some sites were hit said he heard a loud explosion that blew out windows of several trucks parked next to his scrap metal business and snapped several trees in a nearby wooded area in half But the strikes did not reach what appeared to be the intended target: a nearby district power plant The industrial area has witnessed several missile attacks already “I am not surprised it was targeted again,” he said an urban area about 35 kilometers (about 22 miles) southwest of the capital a barrage of missiles followed a drone attack that damaged the two-story home of Halyna Panasian The damage included a deep crater in the courtyard a large hole in the roof and pieces of debris scattered about the house “I was in my bedroom when the house was hit I had to crawl out through the destroyed walls,” Panasian the Netherlands and Sweden are among the nations that have sent or announced plans to supply hundreds of tanks and heavy armored vehicles to fortify Ukraine as it enters a new phase of the war and tries to break through entrenched Russian lines Army veteran and senior historian with the Rand think tank said the M1 Abrams and the Leopards would give Ukraine a “mechanized armored punching force.” The British government said Thursday it would start training Ukrainian troops next week on how to use and fix Challenger 2 tanks is giving 14 of the tanks to Ukraine’s forces and Defense Minister Alex Chalk said they should arrive in Ukraine by the end of March German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said Ukrainian crews will start their training in Germany in coming days on German-made Marders while training on the heavier Leopard 2 tanks would start “a little later.” the aim with the Leopards is to have the first company in Ukraine by the end of March NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg declined to speculate on the timing of the tanks’ arrival but told Britain’s Sky News the “allies are extremely focused on the importance of speed.” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the move to provide Ukraine with modern tanks reflected the West’s growing involvement in the conflict “Both European capitals and Washington keep saying that the delivery of various kinds of weapons systems absolutely does not mean the involvement of these countries or the alliance in the hostilities ongoing in Ukraine,” Peskov told reporters “Moscow views everything that has been done by the alliance and the capitals I have mentioned as direct involvement in the conflict,” he added who happened to be in Ukraine’s Black Sea port city of Odesa on Thursday in part to meet with Ukraine’s foreign minister told France’s LCI television that Thursday’s attacks went beyond retaliation new strikes on civilian installations — that is not making war Please enable JS and disable any ad blocker General Valery Zaluzhny says Ukraine successfully downed 47 of the 55 missiles launched by Russia following west’s offer of tanks Ukraine’s top general vowed that his country would not be “broken” after the successful downing of 47 of the 55 missiles launched by Russia in a mass attack that followed the western offer of tanks commander in chief of the Ukrainian armed forces said 20 of those intercepted had been heading to the Kyiv region where one 55-year-old man was killed and two injured by falling fragments As a result of the Russian assault from air and sea on Thursday morning a total of 11 people died while a further 11 were wounded a spokesperson for the emergency services said People stand near a crater where a missile landed in the village of Hlevakha Photograph: Ed Ram/The Guardian“The goal of the Russians remains unchanged: psychological pressure on Ukrainians and the destruction of critical infrastructure,” Zaluzhny wrote on the Telegram social media platform Huge explosions had shook Kyiv at 10.06am local time and raid sirens had sounded across the country The targets of the strikes appeared primarily to be electricity plants and substations A number of cities had already taken the precaution of turning off the electricity supply to mitigate the level of damage as reports emerged of bombers and cruise missiles heading towards Ukrainian targets The previous night Ukraine’s air defences had shot down 24 Iranian-made Shahed “kamikaze” drones Ukraine’s prosecutor general’s office said three people had been killed in Zaporizhzhia Women talk near a missile landed in the village of Hlevakha Photograph: Ed Ram/The Guardian“At 3.40am the Russian military from the S-300 air defence system launched a missile attack on a critical infrastructure facility in the Zaporizhzhia district,” the statement said said the attacks on his oblast had caused “significant problems with electricity supply.” Waves of Russian drones and missiles can’t stop Ukraine’s heroic defenders On Wednesday, US president Joe Biden had approved sending 31 M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine The reversal of the US’s position came after Germany confirmed it would make 14 of its Leopard 2A6 tanks available to Ukraine and give partner countries its permission to re-export other tanks Berlin’s decision unlocks offers by Canada Poland and Norway to provide Ukraine with their own German-manufactured Leopards About 300 tanks are expected to be provided said the latest attacks highlighted the value of the tank pledges from the west He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the sooner such hardware was received “the sooner we will be able to end this missile terror and restore peace” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov condemned the move by Nato allies claiming it amounted to involvement in the conflict He said: “There are constant statements from European capitals and Washington that the sending of various weapons systems to Ukraine in no way signifies the involvement of these countries or the alliance in hostilities in Ukraine everything that the alliance and the capitals I mentioned are doing is seen as direct involvement in the conflict At the site where a missile landed Photograph: Ed Ram/The GuardianGermany has said it will seek to deliver the Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine by early April while Poland ‘s government said the tanks could arrive in “a few weeks” Speaking in response to the offer of the heavy armour, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy had said speed and volume of supply are key. “Speed in training our forces, speed in supplying tanks to Ukraine The numbers in tank support,” he said in his nightly video address This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks The action you just performed triggered the security solution There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page A member of the board of the Ukrainian Interior Ministry "The heart of Ukrainian patriot Amina Okuyeva has just stopped Her car came under fire from the bushes at a railway crossing near the village of Hlevakha in Kyiv region Amina died as a result of wounds that she sustained," he wrote Herashchenko said that Osmayev was injured "I have just spoken with him on the phone," Herashchenko said The first assassination attempt on Adam Osmayev and Amina Okuyeva Chechen volunteer soldiers who participated in the war against Russian-backed forces in eastern Ukraine who introduced himself as a French journalist invited the couple to a meeting and then shot in a car at Adam but Amina returned gunfire and wounded the attacker While citing and using any materials on the Internet links to the website ukrinform.net not lower than the first paragraph are mandatory citing the translated materials of foreign media outlets is possible only if there is a link to the website ukrinform.net and the website of a foreign media outlet Materials marked as "Advertisement" or with a disclaimer reading "The material has been posted in accordance with Part 3 of Article 9 of the Law of Ukraine "On Advertising" No 1996 and the Law of Ukraine "On the Media" No 2023 and on the basis of an agreement/invoice Online media entity; Media identifier - R40-01421