- Russia has fired more than a dozen cruise missiles at Kyiv and other parts of Ukraine overnight.
- Two cruise missiles also hit a residential building and storage facilities in Uman.
- In Uman, at least 10 people are dead, including two children – that’s according to regional governor Ihor Taburets.
- Russia installs ‘devil’s teeth’ defences which have been deployed behind a 19-mile stretch of anti-tank ditches in the Zaporizhzhia region, as Russia prepares for a Ukrainian offensive.
- Russian troops in sandbag fighting positions at Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
Russia has fired more than a dozen cruise missiles at Kyiv and other parts of Ukraine overnight. The attack on Kyiv was the first since 9 March. Ukraine’s air force intercepted 11 missiles and two drones over Kyiv, the city’s administration said.
Two cruise missiles also hit a residential building and storage facilities in Uman, around 134 miles south of Kyiv, said Ihor Taburets, the regional governor of Cherkasy, the region where the city is located. There were also explosions reported after midnight in the central cities of Kremenchuk and Poltava, and in Mykolaiv in the south, according to the Interfax Ukraine news agency.
In Uman, at least 10 people are dead, including two children – that’s according to regional governor Ihor Taburets. In Dnipro, a two-year-old child and a woman, 31, are dead, with three other people wounded.
Russian missiles were also aimed at Kyiv but it is understood these were intercepted by Ukrainian defences, as we’ve not seen any reports of the attacks being successful. Two people have been injured in the nearby town of Ukrayinka but we understand it is due to fragments from intercepted missiles or drones, which have also damaged power lines and a road.
It is not clear what Russia was targeting, although it has struck civilian infrastructure a number of times before. Russia installs ‘devil’s teeth’ defences “Devil’s teeth” have been deployed behind a 19-mile stretch of anti-tank ditches in the Zaporizhzhia region, as Russia prepares for a Ukrainian offensive. It comes as a military analyst says the West’s weapons stocks have been almost wiped out, so Kyiv must succeed this spring.
Russian forces are establishing sandbag fighting positions on the roofs of several of the six reactor buildings at Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, according to British intelligence. It is the “first indication of the actual reactor buildings being integrated in tactical defence planning”, the defence ministry said in its daily update. The move “highly likely increases the chances of damage” to the plant’s safety systems if fighting takes place around the site. However, “direct catastrophic damage” to the reactors is unlikely under “most plausible scenarios involving infantry weapons” because the structures are very heavily reinforced, the ministry adds.
The nuclear power plant was captured by Russian forces early on in their invasion last year. The reactors at the moment remain in cold shutdown which means they are producing much less heat than they would have been doing when in operation before the war. But it still remains a danger and never before has a nuclear power plant been used as a shield in war. The plant is still being operated by Ukrainian staff.
(With inputs from agencies)
