Russian missile, drone and artillery attacks killed at least nine civilians across Ukraine, while President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Moscow is receiving additional ballistic missiles from North Korea and preparing to deploy more North Korean troops.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
Russian forces launched another large-scale wave of attacks across Ukraine overnight, killing at least nine civilians and striking cities including Zaporizhzhia and Kyiv as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that North Korea is providing Moscow with additional military support.
Local officials said six people were killed and 19 wounded in Zaporizhzhia, where Zelenskyy said Russian forces used ballistic missiles supplied by North Korea.
Three more people, including a 15-year-old boy, were killed in Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region by Russian drones and artillery, according to local authorities.
Zelenskyy said late Monday that Russia had received additional ballistic missiles from Pyongyang and was preparing to deploy more North Korean troops to support its invasion, now more than four years old.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed a strategic partnership agreement slightly more than two years ago that pledges mutual assistance if either country faces aggression.
Since then, Kim has sent thousands of troops and large quantities of weapons to support Russia’s war effort.
Some experts have said North Korea’s involvement is also providing its military with valuable battlefield experience and opportunities to improve its weapons capabilities. Zelenskyy warned that those lessons could eventually increase the threat Pyongyang poses to other countries in its region.
Ukraine says Russia is increasing production of ballistic missiles while seeking to exploit Kyiv’s shortage of Patriot air defense interceptors, which are among the systems capable of shooting them down.
Ukrainian officials also say Moscow is preparing to expand military recruitment for another offensive along the roughly 1,250-kilometer, or 775-mile, front stretching across eastern and southern Ukraine.
“Every step Russia takes — increasing ballistic missile production, bringing in North Korean equipment, preparing for mobilization — all of this shows that Moscow is preparing not for peace, but for escalation,” Zelenskyy said on social media.
U.S.-led diplomatic efforts to end the war have made little progress, with Washington increasingly frustrated by the lack of movement toward a settlement while its attention has shifted toward the war with Iran.
The Institute for the Study of War said Monday that Moscow is unlikely to make significant concessions while Putin believes Russia can still accomplish its goals militarily.
“The Kremlin will not enter serious negotiations or make meaningful compromises on its demands as long as Putin believes that he has a viable military path to achieving his full objectives,” the Washington-based think tank said.
The group also pointed to Ukraine’s limited supply of Patriot interceptors as a potentially significant factor in the coming months.
“Ukraine’s Patriot shortages offer Russia an opportunity to cause very serious damage to Ukraine over the coming winter and will therefore contribute to delaying meaningful negotiations and protracting the war,” the institute said.
Russian forces also attacked Kyiv overnight.
One strike hit the grounds of a children’s hospital, creating two craters and shattering windows, according to Ukraine’s State Emergency Service.
Children and medical personnel had taken shelter in bomb shelters, and no injuries were reported at the hospital.
At another site in Kyiv, a Russian strike ignited a warehouse fire that spread across approximately 1,200 square meters, or nearly 13,000 square feet, emergency officials said.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces targeted “military industrial facilities and transport and logistics centers” in Kyiv and Zaporizhzhia using “ground-based precision weapons.”
The ministry said Tuesday that the attacks struck drone storage facilities in Kyiv and a metallurgical plant in Zaporizhzhia.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia used Zircon anti-ship missiles and Iskander ballistic missiles against Zaporizhzhia and Kyiv while launching 120 long-range strike drones of various types across the country.
Ukraine also continued its own long-range attacks inside Russia.
The Russian Defense Ministry said its air defenses intercepted nearly 400 Ukrainian drones overnight across 14 Russian regions and Russian-occupied Crimea.
Wildberries, Russia’s largest online retailer, said its logistics facilities in the Voronezh region near the Ukrainian border were attacked and caught fire.
The company said the fire was extinguished and that goods stored at the facilities were “largely undamaged.”
Ukraine has repeatedly targeted Wildberries warehouses as well as Russian oil facilities, describing the strikes as part of a campaign intended to pressure Putin into negotiations.
Russian independent outlet Astra also reported that an oil refinery in Orsk, approximately 1,300 kilometers from the Ukrainian border, had been struck and published images showing smoke above the facility.
There was no official confirmation of an attack on the Orsk refinery, which has previously been targeted.
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