Russian forces unleashed a barrage of missile and drone strikes against targets in eastern and southern Ukraine early Friday.
Ukrainian military said the Kremlin’s forces focused their bombardments on Ukraine’s industrial east, especially the Luhansk and Donetsk provinces.
The bombardments could be an effort by Russia to soften up Ukraine’s defenses ahead of a ground assault, which Kyiv believes Moscow is planning.
Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian forces there since 2014, reports AP.
The barrage struck critical infrastructure in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city in the northeast, and hit energy infrastructure in Zaporizhzhia in the southeast. Air raid sirens went off across much of the country.
Zaporizhzhia City Council Secretary Anatolii Kurtiev said the city had been hit 17 times in one hour, which he said made it the most intense period of attacks since the beginning of the full-scale invasion on Feb. 24 2022.
The onslaught lent a sense of urgency to Ukraine’s pleas for more Western military support.
Bd-pratidin English/Golam Rosul
