The Ukrainian capital has come under renewed attack, but the embattled nation’s air defences intercepted all 15 cruise missiles and 18 drones launched by Russian forces, according to Kiev military authorities.
There were no immediate reports of casualties from falling debris after the barrage of missiles targeting the city in the early hours of the morning.
Meanwhile General Serhiy Popko, head of the Kiev military administration, said separately that around 30 hostile objects had been destroyed.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky again highlighted problems with Kiev’s air raid shelters in the wake of the attacks.
Residents of Kiev have reported a shortage of bunkers, locked bunkers and restricted access to them, Zelensky said in his nightly video message. In some districts, there were no shelters at all, he added.
“This level of negligence in the city cannot be covered with any excuses,” Zelensky said, instructing his government to handle the issue.
Kiev faced renewed assaults during the past month, with Russian forces launching more missiles and drones at the city than in any similar period since Moscow began its full-scale invasion in February last year.
In Bakhmut, the head of the Russian mercenary force Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said that nearly all of his fighters have pulled out of the captured eastern Ukrainian city.
Prigozhin said on Friday evening that 99 per cent of the units had left the city.
“All positions have been handed over to the (Russian) Ministry of Defence in the appropriate order.”
Meanwhile in eastern Ukraine, the head of the Russian republic of Chechnya in the North Caucasus, Ramzan Kadyrov, said his combat unit Akhmat had launched offensives in the Donetsk region.
Large parts of the town of Maryinka were captured by his troops, who were fighting alongside regular Russian soldiers, he said on Telegram.
In Russia, two people were killed and six others injured in the border region of Belgorod after heavy shelling from the Ukrainian side, according to Russian officials.
Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said missiles had hit a private property near the border town of Valuyki. Two children were among the injured.
The western Russian regions of Kursk, Bryansk, Smolensk and Kaluga have also reported being attacked with drones and explosions.
Two paramilitary Russian volunteer battalions have repeatedly claimed responsibility for such attacks. Groups called “Russian Volunteer Corps” and “Legion of Freedom of Russia” are fighting for Ukraine, but are made up of Russian nationalists.
The British Ministry of Defence said these attacks on Russian territory by pro-Ukrainian partisans were generating a problem for the Russian military.
“Russian commanders now face an acute dilemma of whether to [strengthen] defences in Russia’s border regions or reinforce their lines in occupied Ukraine,” it said in its daily update.
Meanwhile in an assessment of the hostilities overall, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine has been “a case study in failure” with respect to Russia’s equipment, technology, leadership, troops, strategy, tactics and morale, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Friday.
Speaking in Helsinki, he said, “When you look at President Putin’s long-term strategic games and objectives, there is no question that Russia is significantly worse off today than it was before its full-scale invasion of Ukraine – militarily, economically, geopolitically.”
As Ukraine seeks additional weapons to fight off the invasion, Chinese special envoy for Eurasia Li Hui called for a halt to arms deliveries to the conflict region.
Neither Russia nor Ukraine had closed the door to negotiations, Li said in Beijing, following a trip last month that took in Ukraine, Russia and several EU countries.