As Putin’s Rockets Strike Kiev, Russian Strongman Hits Ukraine Over Reports of a Missile Strike

With the Ukraine war in its 19th day, many are those who wish the beast were only imaginary. As if to underscore the brutal reality of Vladimir Putin’s protracted assault on Ukraine, Kiev’s charismatic mayor, Vitali Klitschko, today posted a short video on Twitter showing a blown-out city bus “just hit by a rocket,” and a cratered section of a street in front of it. “This is what Russia’s war against the civilians of Ukraine looks like,” Mr. Klitschko said in halting English while apparently filming the distressing scene himself, using his phone to show the world the wreckage. The Ukrainian capital was hit by “several” Russian missiles today, Sky News reported, killing at least two people and resulting in damage to a residential block, an aircraft factory, and at least one city street. Sky reported that the city’s deputy mayor, Serhiy Orlov, said Kiev was experiencing “constant shelling, bombing, and some street battles.”The Associated Press reports that Russian troops were refocusing their efforts on seizing Kiev on Monday and a local official said on Ukrainian television they were firing artillery on suburbs. A Fox News journalist, Benjamin Hall, was injured outside Kiev, the website Deadline reported. Fox’s John Roberts said in his broadcast of “America Reports” that Mr. Hall was working at the time of the injury, the details of which were not made immediately clear but he remains hospitalized outside Kiev. An American filmmaker, Brent Renaud, was shot dead on Sunday by Russian forces in the town of Irpin, which has become a flashpoint location as those forces close in on nearby Kiev. Today the U.S. Embassy in Kiev tweeted a warning for all U.S. citizens to leave Ukraine immediately. As Russian rockets and jackboots turn Ukraine into a chessboard of perils, nowhere has it been trickier for residents to make a safe move than in the embattled Black Sea city of Mariupol, which has borne the brunt of the Russian military menace in eastern Ukraine. The city council reports that more than 2,100 people have been killed in the city since the Russian invasion began. The good news is that a convoy of at least 160 cars left Mariupol on Monday in the first successful attempt to arrange a humanitarian corridor out of the encircled Ukrainian city after more than a week of trying, Reuters reported. The bad news is that with no ceasefire yet in sight — and amid relentless bombing and artillery fire — remaining residents may yet have to confront what the International Committee of the Red Cross terms “a worst-case scenario.”Eastern Ukraine was the scene of more senseless tragedy today: Reuters reported that Russia’s defense ministry claimed on Monday that 20 civilians had been killed and 28 wounded when a Ukrainian missile with a cluster charge exploded in the separatist-controlled city of Donetsk — what is seen as the capital of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic — in eastern Ukraine. While Ukraine denies this, the situation in Donetsk is murky. CNN reported that the Ukrainian side was accused of launching the missile and the Moscow Times posted a dispatch from the Agence France-Presse that said the separatists claimed the casualties resulted from fragments of a rocket that they had shot down. Both Russian media and Vladimir Putin have been playing the ambiguity of the Donetsk attack to the hilt. RIA Novosti, the state-owned Russian news agency, ran this headline: “Putin pointed out to the Prime Minister of Israel the barbaric action of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Donetsk.” The Times of Israel reported that Prime Minister Bennett “left a cabinet meeting on Monday evening in order to hold back-to-back phone calls with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.” According to the newspaper, a diplomatic official who briefed reporters said items discussed on the call with Mr. Putin included efforts to reach a ceasefire in Ukraine and to allow access to Israeli humanitarian aid. The official also said that “Putin complained to Bennett about the ‘barbaric’ acts of Ukrainian soldiers in the separatist-held Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, where Russia claims 20 civilians were killed.”The truth about what transpired today in Donetsk may never be known, but that won’t stop Mad Vlad, as Britain’s Sun newspaper calls Mr. Putin, from leveraging the Russian version of the incident to wreak more havoc on his quarry, a free and independent Ukraine. As Komsomolskaya Pravda reported today, Russia is threatening new and “merciless” strikes on Ukraine. The popular Russian daily reported that the Russian defense ministry announced “new strikes on the enterprises of the military-industrial complex of Ukraine.”The warning is starkly clear: Some Ukrainians who might have thought they are not in harm’s way may, in fact, be directly in it. Russia will take measures to “disable the enterprises of the defense-industrial complex of Ukraine, which carry out the production, repair and restoration of weapons,” the Komsomolskaya Pravda report said. It quoted this statement from the Russian defense ministry: “We urge the citizens of Ukraine who work at these enterprises, as well as residents of nearby residential buildings, to leave potentially dangerous areas.”In the meantime, Ukraine’s General Staff of the Armed Forces claims in a Facebook post Monday to have shot down “four Russian planes, three helicopters,” and an unspecified number of unmanned aerial vehicles. In that post, the armed forces also said they had inflicted “devastating blows” on Russian field bases and warehouses and that this would “disrupt the system of logistical support of the enemy in the territories of Ukraine temporarily occupied by the occupiers.”Ceasefire talk from quarters high and low notwithstanding, the war in Ukraine is, in Moscow’s view at least, maddeningly still on.

As Putin’s Rockets Strike Kiev, Russian Strongman Hits Ukraine Over Reports of a Missile Strike

More from the New York Sun

The Cloisters Embraces the Ancient Americas, With Uneven Results

Hunter Biden Claims Dad Was Pushed Out of Presidential Race Because He Was Not Part of the ‘Epstein Class’

More from the New York Sun

The Cloisters Embraces the Ancient Americas, With Uneven Results

Hunter Biden Claims Dad Was Pushed Out of Presidential Race Because He Was Not Part of the ‘Epstein Class’

Colbert Marks the End of ‘The Late Show’ With Performance by Paul McCartney, but No Explicit Reference to Trump

The Cultural Significance of Nicki Minaj’s Conservatism

News Aggregators Reinforcing Political Ignorance, Especially for Young Americans

‘Whites-Only’ Community Sued After Rejecting Woman Over Her Jewish Ancestry, Black Husband

Trump’s Tariffs Are Fueling Voters’ Frustration Over Affordability

Newsom Suggests Universal Basic Capital as Solution to AI-Driven Unemployment