Ukraine-Russia war: Five-storey residential building victim of Russian missile strikes

An elderly Ukraine priest was killed by Russian shelling as the toll from missile strikes rises, and NATO says Kyiv’s counteroffensive could force the Kremlin to negotiate.

Russian forces killed an elderly priest in a churchyard when they shelled the town of Bilozerka in southern Ukraine, authorities said.

Andriy Yermak, the head of Ukraine’s presidential office, said on social media that the priest was 72, adding that a 76-year-old woman was wounded.

Four residential buildings, a post office, a central square and some administrative buildings were damaged in the attack on Tuesday local time, he said in a statement.

In a separate statement, the Office of the General Prosecutor said it was probing a “war crime”.

Bilozerka is located about 10km west of the southern city of Kherson, a regional centre retaken by the Ukrainian army last year and partially flooded after the destruction of a dam on the Dnipro river last week.

Russia and Ukraine have accused each other of destroying the Kakhovka dam.

The Russian army has regularly shelled Kherson and its surroundings from the eastern bank of the Dnipro after the city was recaptured.

Kyiv says its forces have retaken seven villages and made advances in the country’s east and south in its counter-offensive against Russia.

A local resident clears debris of a shop destroyed after a Russian shelling in Kherson, 10km from where an elderly Ukraine priest was struck and killed in a churchyard. Picture: AFP

Ukrainian servicemen fire a multiple rocket launcher towards Russian positions near Bakhmut in the Donetsk region amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Picture: AFP

ZELENSKYY’S BIRTHPLACE HIT

The toll from nightime Russian missile strikes on infrastructure, including a five-storey residential building in the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rig, has risen to six, officials said.

Kryvyi Rig is the birthplace of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

“Unfortunately, there are already six dead. The rescue operation is continuing,” Oleksandr Vilkul, the head of the city’s military administration, said in a statement on social media.

He added that six missiles had hit five civilian sites.

Four people were killed and 21 injured as a result of a strike on a five-storey apartment building, the emergencies ministry said.

A five-storey residential building destroyed in a night Russian missile strike in the city of Kryvyi Rig. Picture: National Police of Ukraine/AFP

According to a local official, who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity, two more people died in a food storage facility that was also struck.

Sergiy Lysak, governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region that includes Kryvyi Rig, said 25 people were wounded, adding that some victims remained under the rubble.

Officials earlier said that three people had been killed.

Air raid sirens sounded across Ukraine as the capital Kyiv and the northeast city of Kharkiv also came under missile and drone attacks.

Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 14 cruise missiles and four Iranian-made drones overnight, with 10 missiles and one drone intercepted.

In the morning, another missile was fired by Russian forces before being shot down by the Ukrainian air defence.

Firefighters rest during the attempt to extinguish a fire on a five-storey residential building, the site of a Russian missile strike in Kryvyi Rig. Picture: AFP

“More terrorist missiles, Russian killers continue their war against residential buildings, ordinary cities and people. Unfortunately, there are dead and wounded,” Mr Zelenskyy said on Twitter.

The wave of attacks came after Ukraine claimed to have retaken seven villages and made advances in its counter-offensive against Russian forces.

Military spokesman Andriy Kovalyov said the area of the recaptured land in the eastern and southern regions amounted to “more than 100 square kilometres”.

The commander of Ukrainian ground forces, Colonel Oleksandr Syrskyi, said troops were continuing “the defence operation in the Bakhmut sector”, scene of the longest battle of the offensive.

“Our soldiers are advancing, and the enemy is losing ground on the flanks,” he said.

On Monday, Zelenskyy said Ukraine was making small gains in a “tough” counter-offensive.

RUSSIA CLAIMS TO HAVE CAPTURED WESTERN ARMOUR

Moscow said that it had captured several German Leopard tanks and US Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, releasing footage showing Russian troops surveying the equipment supplied to Ukraine by Western countries.

“Leopard tanks and Bradley infantry fighting vehicles. These are our trophies. Equipment of the Ukrainian armed forces in the Zaporizhzhia region,” the Russian defence ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.

“Servicemen of the Vostok group inspect enemy tanks and infantry fighting vehicles captured in battle.”

The defence ministry said several of the captured vehicles had working engines, suggesting that this suggested the battles they were involved in had been short and that Ukrainian troops had “fled” their offensive positions.

Germany will not be able to immediately replace tanks it is providing to Ukraine, the country’s defence minister has said, as Russia claimed to have destroyed or captured some of them.

Berlin his year started sending advanced Leopard battle tanks to Ukraine, after months of pleas from Kyiv for the heavy weapons to bolster its fightback against Russia.

Defence Minister Boris Pistorius told broadcaster RTL, in an interview aired late Monday, that “we will not be able to replace every tank that is now out of action”.

He refused to confirm the authenticity of images circulating online purportedly showing some of the tanks damaged in battle.

But he added that “unfortunately it is the nature of war that weapons are destroyed, that tanks are destroyed and people are killed.

“That is why our support for Ukraine is so important.”

Ukrainian military personnel receive armoured manoeuvre training on German-made Leopard 2 battle tanks at the Spanish army's training centre in Zaragoza last March. Picture: AFP

The government has so far delivered 18 of the advanced Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February last year, Germany has dropped a traditionally pacifist stance and sent a vast array of weaponry to Kyiv, from air defence to artillery systems.

LARGEST NATO AIR DRILL ‘SHOW OF STRENGTH’ TO PUTIN

NATO has began its largest ever air force deployment exercise in Europe, in a display of unity toward partners and potential threats such as Russia. The German-led “Air Defender 23” will include some 250 military aircraft from 25 NATO and partner countries including Japan and Sweden, which is bidding to join the alliance. It will run until June 23. Up to 10,000 service members are to participate in the drills intended to boost interoperability and preparedness to protect against drones and cruise missiles in the case of an attack within NATO territory.

F-16 fighter jets practice prior to the Air Defender 2023 military exercises in the airspace between Schleswig and Jagel in northern Germany. Picture: Getty Images

“The significant message we’re sending is that we can defend ourselves,” Lieutenant General Ingo Gerhartz of the German Luftwaffe told public television.
“Air Defender” was conceived in 2018 in part as a response to the Russian annexation of Crimea from Ukraine four years before, though Gerhartz insisted it was “not targeted at anyone”.

A Tornado fighter plane of the German Air Force at Jagel air base in Germany. Picture: Getty Images

He said the exercise would not “send any flights, for example, in the direction of Kaliningrad,” the Russian enclave bordering alliance member states Poland and Lithuania.
“We are a defensive alliance and that is how this exercise is planned,” he said.
The first flights began in late Monday morning local time at the Wunstorf, Jagel and Lechfeld air bases, a Luftwaffe spokesman confirmed to AFP.

A Tornado fighter plane with the Air Defender 2023' logo at Jagel air base in Germany. Picture: Getty Images

Hundreds of demonstrators had gathered at Wunstorf in northern Germany on Saturday against the drills, under the banner “Practice peace – not war”.
Protesters called for a “diplomatic solution” to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and an immediate ceasefire.

A Tornado fighter plane of the German Air Force takes off at Jagel air base in Jagel, Germany. Picture: Getty Images

US Ambassador to Germany Amy Gutmann said the exercise would show “beyond a shadow of a doubt the agility and the swiftness of our allied force” and was intended to send a message to countries including Russia.
“I would be pretty surprised if any world leader was not taking note of what this shows in terms of the spirit of this alliance, which means the strength of this alliance, and that includes Mr Putin,” she told reporters, referring to the Russian president.
“By synchronising together, we multiply our force.”

US REVEALS WHAT UKRAINE MUST DO TO END WAR

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has claimed that a successful offensive by Ukraine would force Russian President Vladimir Putin into moving to end its invasion.

Speaking alongside his Italian counterpart on Monday, Mr Blinken said the US was “confident that they will continue to have success” after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy indicated that a long-discussed offensive was underway.

“Success in the counteroffensive would do two things – it would strengthen its position at any negotiating table that emerges, and it may have the effect as well of actually causing Putin to finally focus on negotiating an end to the war that he started,” Mr Blinken told a joint news conference with Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani.

“In that sense, it can actually bring peace closer, not put it further away.”

Mr Blinken said that the offensive showed the need to “maximise our support to Ukraine now, so it can have success on the battlefield.”

Russia has publicly spoken of support for negotiations, with China leading international calls for mediation.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken made the remarks in Washington, DC. Picture: AFP.

‘ESCALATING THREATS’: KIM JONG-UN’S STARK MESSAGE

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un offered his country’s “full support and solidarity” to Moscow in a message to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday, state media reported.

Mr Kim sent the message of congratulations on the national day of Russia, one of a handful of nations that maintain friendly relations with Pyongyang.

His message, published by the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), did not directly mention the invasion of Ukraine or Moscow’s involvement in an armed conflict, but praised Putin’s “correct decision and guidance … to foil the hostile forces’ escalating threats”.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has declared Moscow has it’s “full support” in a message to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Picture: Getty Images

The North Korean people, it added, extend “full support and solidarity to the Russian people in their all-out struggle for implementing the sacred cause to preserve the sovereign rights, development and interests of their country against the imperialists’ highhanded and arbitrary practices.”

This is the latest message of support from Pyongyang to Moscow since the beginning of the war in Ukraine.

North Korea has described that conflict as a US “proxy war” to destroy Russia, and condemned Western military aid to Kyiv.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has received a personal message from Kim Jong-un. Picture: AFP

In January, the United States accused North Korea of supplying rockets and missiles to the Russian mercenary group Wagner. Pyongyang denied that allegation.

And in March, Washington claimed to have proof that Moscow was looking to Pyongyang to supply weapons for its offensive in Ukraine, in return for food aid for impoverished North Korea.

As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, Russia has long held the line against increasing pressure on North Korea, which is under multiple UN and Western sanctions over its nuclear weapons and missile programs.

Originally published as Ukraine-Russia war: Five-storey residential building victim of Russian missile strikes