KYIV, Ukraine ( Associated Press) — Russian shelling killed at least 10 Ukrainian civilians and wounded 20 others in a day, the Ukrainian president’s office said Friday as the country prepares to recover from a previous wave of missile and drone strikes. struggling for. ,
The most recent casualties included two civilians in the southern city of Kherson, which was retaken by Ukrainian troops in November, and two others in the eastern province of Donetsk. On Thursday, missiles and self-propelled drones launched by the Russian military penetrated deep into Ukrainian territory, killing at least 11 people.
The Russian attacks followed the United States and Germany announcing their plans to send powerful tanks to help defend Ukraine. Other western countries said they would also send modern tanks.
Moscow has accused Western countries of raising the confrontation with Russia to a new level, furious over the announcements.
The governor of the Donetsk region, Pavlo Kirilenko, said that Russian forces used phosphorus ammunition when shelling the village of Zhvanivka. It is located 20 kilometers north of Bakhmut, which has been the subject of bloody fighting for months. Kirilenko said the shots also damaged residential buildings and two schools in the neighboring town of Vuhledar.
Serhiy Haidai, governor of the Luhansk region, said Ukrainian guns struck two Russian positions in the occupied towns of Kremina and Rubizhnye, killing or wounding “dozens” of Russian soldiers. This information could not be independently verified.
Further south, Russian forces began shelling the city of Nikopol across the Dnieper River from the Zaporizhia nuclear plant, damaging residential buildings, gas pipelines, power connections and a bakery, officials said. Zaporizhia is in the hands of the Russians.
On the other hand, the Russian authorities took further steps towards incorporating the four Ukrainian provinces into the larger Russian territory. He said that these illegally occupied provinces would move from Kyiv’s time zone to Moscow’s time zone.
A Western plan to send modern tanks to Ukraine drew mixed reactions on Friday.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told Canadian broadcaster CTV that his country was ready to send 60 tanks, half of them PT-91 models, a Polish-modernized version of the Soviet-era T-72M1. In addition, it will send 14 Leopard 2 tanks after Berlin approves the shipment of German-made tanks to Ukraine.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova warned that sending Western tanks to Ukraine would not change the situation in Kyiv’s favor, but would “bring Western countries to a new level of confrontation with our country and our people.”
