Ukraine announced on Friday that five Russian missiles had hit Kyiv during a visit by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres a day earlier, sparking widespread condemnation as huge quantities of weapons for Ukrainian forces continued to reach Eastern Europe. Weekend transports include more US artillery, radar systems and armed unmanned aircraft, as well as mines, rockets and small arms ammunition from other countries. The increased pace of missions comes as Ukrainian forces try to contain a major Russian offensive in the Donbas region. A senior US defense official said Russian troops appeared to be “at least several days behind where they wanted to be” in the new attack and had met strong Ukrainian resistance. The Russians relied on air raids, followed by artillery raids, before advancing their ground forces, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the Pentagon. The official said ground movements were “quite declining”. Russia seems to have abandoned its previous goal of occupying Kyiv and other population centers in the northern and central parts of the country, instead focusing on Donbas, a part of eastern Ukraine where fighting has been going on for years. In response to Ukraine’s urgent demands, the West has flooded the country with heavy weapons, including artillery, suitable for an ongoing land campaign. Thursday’s attack in Kyiv destroyed what Russia described as an “arms factory” and also hit a high-rise apartment building, killing Ukrainian journalist Vira Hyrych, who worked for the US-funded Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. It was the first major strike in the capital since Russian forces withdrew from the area earlier this month. “We are shocked and outraged by the absurd nature of her death at home, in a country and city she loved,” said Jamie Fly, president of Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. She said her remains were found Friday morning amid the rubble of the building. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the attack – during Guterres’ visit shortly after he saw Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow – was an attempt by the Kremlin to “humiliate the UN and everything that the organization represents.” Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto, in a joint press conference in Helsinki with his Swedish counterpart to discuss their possible applications for NATO membership, called for the issue to be considered at the UN Security Council, where Russia is one of the five permanent members. veto-wielding members. Guterres posted photos of his time on Twitter on Friday, touring the decimated buildings around the capital, and wrote that he was “moved by the resilience and bravery of the Ukrainian people.” My message to them is simple: We will not give up. ” At the United Nations, Deputy Spokesman Farhan Haq said the secretary-general did not view the attack in Kyiv “as he did”. “[The secretary general] “He sees this as another sign that there are parties who want to continue this war and we want to continue to push to ensure that the conflict can be ended.” I was moved by the resilience and bravery of the people of Ukraine. My message to them is simple: We will not give up. @UN will redouble its efforts to save lives and reduce human suffering. In this war, as in all wars, the people always pay the highest price. pic.twitter.com/dd1OsyzAOb – António Guterres (@antonioguterres) April 29, 2022 At the Pentagon, spokesman John Kirby said the U.S. military had begun training Ukrainian troops in the newly arrived weapons, including 155mm artillery and artillery radar. Most of the training, Kirby said, would be carried out by members of the Florida National Guard, which had training forces inside Ukraine until shortly before the Russian invasion in February. New commitments and confirmations of the existing ones were made by some nations that participated in a US-sponsored conference in Germany of more than 40 countries that support Ukraine. One of the goals of the conference was to synchronize donations and their delivery and to meet the immediate needs of Ukraine. Canada, among those present, is also supplying shells, as well as precision cameras for Turkish-made armed drones and other equipment, Canadian Defense Minister Anita Anand said in an interview Thursday. “We must continue to provide military assistance regardless of the changing strategy of the Russians,” he said. Kirby, in a press conference on Friday, used some of his strongest language to describe Putin, accusing him of “impoverishment” in emotional comments. Asked if Putin was a sensible actor, Kirby said it was difficult to see what the Russian leader and his forces were doing after two months of war in Ukraine and “to think that any moral, moral person could justify it.” After he stopped composing himself, Kirby, a retired admiral, said he could not speak for the entire US government. “I have been close to the army for a very, very long time and I have met friends who have not returned,” he told reporters. “It’s just difficult. It’s just difficult to see that, and it’s hard to put squares of his – let’s call it what it is – his,” he said, referring to Putin. There have been strong reminders in Ukraine of the human death toll of the war. Zelensky told Polish media that officials had discovered a mass grave in the Kiev region “with the bodies of 900 civilians”. A spokesman for the president, Serhiy Nykyforov, later said Zelensky was wrong. A new mass grave was discovered near Butsa this week, he said, but “900 people is the approximate number of bodies found in the area” after the Russian withdrawal. Among the deaths reported Friday were a 22-year-old U.S. citizen and Marine Corps veteran Willy Joseph Cancel, whose family said he was killed in the fighting this week. The nature of Cancel’s activity in Ukraine and the circumstances surrounding his death, as originally reported by CNN, were not immediately clear. His son “just wanted to help,” Cancel’s father, Willy Cancel Jr., told the Washington Post. Cancel joined the Marine Corps in 2017 as an infantry rifle, said Major Jim Stenger, a spokesman for the agency. His awards show that he spent some time at sea and in South Korea. Cancel left the military after being taken to a military tribunal in 2020 and serving a five-month prison sentence, the service said. A person familiar with the matter said that Cancel was taken to a military court after he brought a gun to the base. Cancel would be the first known American to be killed in a battle in Ukraine. Asked about the death at an unrelated event in Washington, President Biden said: “It’s very sad. “He left a small baby behind.” Separately, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe said it would take “immediate action” to end a monitoring mission in Ukraine, days after the agency said some of its employees were being held in Russian-occupied territories. “It is not an easy decision to make,” Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau, who became chairman of the OSCE in January, said in a statement. He said the group “explored all possible options through political dialogue; but the position of the Russian Federation left us with no choice but to take steps to close the Mission”. Rau did not link the bookings directly to the withdrawal decision. In March, the 57-member security group said that Russia, a member with the right to vote, had opposed the extension of the mission, effectively ending a mandate that had been in place since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014. . As Europe looks for ways to end its dependence on Russian energy supplies, a hesitant debate in the European Union over the suspension of oil imports was expected to continue until the weekend. The mitigation by Germany, which wants a phasing out of oil rather than a complete immediate ban, was seen by EU diplomats as more likely, but far from guaranteed. The Baltic states and some other Eastern European countries have called for a full energy embargo. Others, especially Germany and Hungary, have resisted. The ban was seen as increasingly critical to the downgrading of the mainstream of the Russian economy as the war entered its third month. Emily Rauhala in Brussels, Timothy Bella, Abigail Hauslohner, Julian Mark and Felicia Sonmez in Washington contributed to this exhibition.
