Russians hit Ukrainian hospital as both sides launch long-range strikes
KYIV, Ukraine — Explosions far behind the front lines shook Ukraine on Friday, as a Russian missile destroyed part of a hospital complex and apparent Ukrainian strikes hit Russian-held cities, in their escalating long-range air war.
The attack on a medical center in the central city of Dnipro left at least two people dead, three more missing and at least 30 injured, Ukrainian officials said. It destroyed a three-story building and damaged several others.
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine posted a video on social media of a gutted building, its roof and upper walls missing, blowing smoke into the air, calling it “another crime against humanity”.
Ukraine is expected to launch a major counter-offensive soon — some analysts say it may be in the early stages — and both sides stepped up their ranged attacks ahead of the ground clash. Kiev’s armed forces have increased the pace and scope of attacks deep into Russian-held territory, mainly on military depots, convoys and troop concentrations, and railways used by Russian forces.
On Friday, explosions were reported for the second time this week over the Russian-occupied southern city of Berdyansk, about 60 miles from the front. Vladimir Rogov, a Russian occupation official in southern Ukraine, said several loud explosions had echoed over Berdyansk overnight and that Russian air defenses thwarted a Ukrainian attack, a claim that could not be confirmed.
The Ukrainian military did not specifically comment on Berdyansk, but said the air force had “conducted five strikes against enemy manpower and equipment clusters”. GeoConfirmed, one of many volunteer groups closely monitoring battlefield movements in Ukraine, posted images to Twitter who showed a large fire and said hits had been recorded in Berdyansk, although it was unclear what was hit.
On Friday night, there were two large explosions in another occupied city to the south, Mariupol, about 40 miles from Berdyansk, near the Azovstal steel mill, according to Mariupol city government officials who fled before the Russians took over. Russian occupation officials said the blasts were caused by Ukrainian missilessupplied new by Britain, according to the state news agency Tass.
Friday morning’s Dnipro hospital strike followed one of Russia’s increasingly frequent nighttime barrages targeting cities and infrastructure far from the battlefield, with missiles and drones fired in beams in an attempt to overwhelm Ukrainian air defences. The Ukrainian army said it destroyed 10 of 17 missiles launched and 23 of 31 attack drones.
“Only an evil state can fight against clinics,” Zelensky wrote on Twitter. “There can be no military purpose in this. It’s pure terror.”
Russia’s Defense Ministry told state media it had attacked Ukrainian ammunition depots.
The city of Dnipro is a hub for Ukrainian soldiers wounded in battle, usually a first stop before being transported to hospitals in other parts of the country. It was not clear if any Ukrainian soldiers were being treated at the facility that was hit on Friday.
“It was a very difficult night,” said Serhii Lysak, head of the Dnipro regional government. One of the dead, he said, was a 69-year-old man who was “just passing by” when the hospital was hit.
From the start of President Vladimir V. Putin’s full-scale invasion 15 months ago, Russia has used its weapons advantage to bomb civilian targets across Ukraine, such as hospitals, schools and power plants, in what is considered a war crime. Initially, the long-range attacks were entirely one-sided and largely unimpeded.
But as Ukraine’s military has gained experience and a growing arsenal of Western weapons, it has become more adept at intercepting such Russian attacks and better able to respond in kind.
Last summer, the United States began supplying Ukraine with HIMARS rocket artillery systems with a range of about 50 miles, making a critical difference in combat. In December, Ukraine showed it could convert Soviet-era surveillance drones into long-range weapons to attack Russia. And Britain this month started giving Ukraine highly accurate, air-launched Storm Shadow cruise missiles with a range of about 150 miles – far enough to reach every corner of Russian-occupied Ukraine.
Following an attack on Berdyansk on Sunday, local Russian officials claimed Kiev had used the newly acquired Storm Shadow.
Russian forces have turned Berdyansk, a port on the Sea of Azov, into a military stronghold and are using it as a base for soldiers and a transit point for suppliesmilitary analysts said.
Closer to the front lines in the Donetsk region, Russian troops a dam broke on the Vovcha River on Thursday, causing flooding downstream that threatened six villages, home to nearly 1,000 people, Pavlo Kyrylenko, Ukraine’s regional administrator, said Friday. The attack may have been an attempt to impede Ukrainian troop movements behind the lines, a tactic used by both sides in this war.
The government of Ukraine has repeatedly warned of the risk that Russia will blow up the much larger Kakhovka dam on the Dnipro River, flooding a much larger area and sinking the reservoir that cools the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant , creating an emergency situation.
Late Friday, Ukrainian military intelligence warned that the Russians planned to create an emergency at the power plant, which they occupied, “in the coming hours” to provide a pretext for a ceasefire that would prevent the counteroffensive . The Ukrainian government has previously warned of threats to the plant, but has rarely been so specific.
“A strike will be carried out” at the plant, followed by the announcement of a radioactive leak, the intelligence agency reports said on Telegram, adding that the Russians would blame Ukraine. Energoatom, the Ukrainian nuclear energy company, repeated the claim.
The Ukrainians offered no evidence for the claim, leaving it unclear whether it might have been disinformation designed to throw the Russians off balance. Hours later, a Russian occupation official claimed that it was the Ukrainians who were planning to create an emergency at the factory.
The United States is closely monitoring the situation but has not seen any information to support the idea that an incident is planned, said a US official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence issues. The United States has direct access to data from radiation sensors in the area, the official said.
The United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency has inspectors at the Zaporizhzhia plant, and a rotation of some arriving and others departing was to take place on Friday. The Ukrainians said the Russians were interfering. The Russian state energy company that now oversees the plant told Tass that the Ukrainians had blocked it.
The UN agency declined to comment.
On the diplomatic front, Pope Francis, who has offered the Vatican as a mediator, refused to endorse the position of Ukraine and many of its Western backers that Russia should return all Ukrainian territory it seized. Kiev has called that a precondition for peace talks and stressed that otherwise a ceasefire would only strengthen Russian gains.
In an interview on Thursday, in Spanish, with the Telemundo network, Francis was asked twice whether Russia should cede the area. The first time he answered the question directly.
“It’s a political issue,” he said for the second time. “Peace will be achieved once they can talk to each other.”
Andrew E. Kramer And Maria Varenikova contributed reporting from Pokrovsk, Ukraine, and Julian E Barnes from Washington.