The death toll from a Russian strike on an apartment buildi𝓀ng in Southeast Ukraine's Dnipro has risen🤡 to at least 37. The dead also include two children.
The Russian strike on a multi-storey residential building on Saturday in Dn𝔍ipro also injured 75 people, including 15 children. The strike was the latest in the continuous Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure.
The latest reports also suggest tha𒅌t Russia is preparing for a long, protracted war and it could also launch a renewed offensive later this year.
Besides civilian housing, the Russians have also struck Ukraine's🌃 energy infrastructure and have caused widespread outages across Ukraine in recent months. Amid harsh winter, the damage to energy infrastructure and destruction of housing is adding to people's woes and displacing more people.
Dnipro strike deadliest since summer
The Dnipro death toll made it the deadliest single atta⛄ck on civilians since before the summer, according to The Associated Press-Frontline War Crimes Watch.
The European Union's (EU) foreign policy✨ chief, Josep Borrell, called the strike, and ot𓂃hers like it, “inhumane aggression” because it directly targeted civilians.
“There will be no impunity for these cr🍎imes,” said Borrell in a tweet on Sunda✨y.
Asked about the strike on Monday, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Russian military doesn't tar💧get resi💮dential buildings and suggested the Dnipro building was hit as a result of Ukrainian air defence actions.
The Ukrainian military said on Sunday that it did not have the means to intercept the type of Russian missile used in Saturday's strike. The strike on the building came amid a wider barrage of Russian cruise missiles across 🌟Ukraine.
Fighting continues in Eastern Ukraine
Fierce fighting continued to rage in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk province, where military analysts have said both siꦕdes are likely sufꦚfering heavy troop casualties. No independent verification of developments was possible.
Donetsk and neighbouring Luhansk꧂ province make up t🤡he Donbas region, an expansive industrial region bordering Russia that Russian President Vladimir Putin identified as a focus from the war's outset. Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting Kyiv's forces there since 2014.
The US-based Institute for the Study of War's (ISW) latest map on Monday shows the latest fighting and territoꦕry controlled by the two sides.
Among other places, significant fighting is taking place in Lysychansk, Spirner, Pokrovske, Marinka, Avdiivka, Toretsk, and Bakhmut in the east. The Russian forces captured Soledar around Pokrovske recently𒁏 in first major success in weeks.
The Russian and Belarusian air forces began a joint exercise on M🎃onday in Belarus, which borders Ukraine and served as a staging ground for Russia's February 24 invas♈ion of Ukraine. The drills are set to run through February 1, the Belarusian Defence Ministry said. Russia has sent its warplanes to Belarus for the drills.
Russia preparing for 'decisive strategic action': Report
The Institute for the Study of War's (ISW) reported that there are 🥃signs that Russia is꧒ preparing for a "decisive strategic action" later this year.
In its daily update on Monday, the ISW said that the Russian offensive is "intended to end Ukra♈ine’s string of operational successes and regain the ini🌳tiative".
The ISW says that the Russian preparations are of th🌼e kind that a country would undertake before launching an invasion.
"The Kremlin is belat꧃edly conducting personnel mobilisation, reorganisation, and industrial actions it probably should have undertaken before launching its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and is taking steps to conduct the 'ᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚspecial military operation' as a major conventional war," notes ISW.
The ISW notes that Russia is changing the nature of Ukraine War. Since the onset, it has termed it as ܫa "special military operation" but is now appears to turn it into a broader conventional war.
"While Putin has not changed his objectives for the war, there is emerging evidence that he is changing fundamental aspects of Russia’s approach to the war by undertaking several new lines of🥂 effort...The Russian military is conserving mobilized personnel for future use — an inflection from the Kremlin’s initial approach of rushing untrained bodies to the front in fall 2022...Putin is re-centralising control of the war effort in Ukraine under the Ministry of Defense and appointed Russia’s senior-most uniformed officer, Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, as theater commander," notes ISW.
The ISW notes Ukraine's Western partners "will need to continue supportinওg Ukraine in the long ru🦹n".
NATO me𝐆mber nations have sought in recent days to reas🎶sure Ukraine that they will stay the course.
The United Kingdom has pl🍌edged tanks and the US military's new, expanded combat training of Ukrainian forces began in Germany on Sunday.
Other developments on Monday
Russian f🍸orces shelled the city of Kherson and the Kherson region, killing three people and wounding 14 others over the last 24 hours, regional Gov. Yaroslav Yanushevych said.
In the city o꧂f Kherson, the shelling damaged a hospital, a children disability center, a𝔉 shipyard, critical infrastructure and apartment buildings.
Russian forces struck the city of Zaporizhzh♐ia, damaging industrial infrastructure and wounding five people, two of them children, the deputy head of Ukraine🍌's presidential office Kyrylo Tymoshenko reported.
Russian air defences downed seven drones Monday over the Black Sea near the port of Sevastopol in annexed𒁃 Crimea, Mikhail Razvozhayev, the Russian-installed head of Sevastopol, reported.
(With AP inputs)
