Air raid alert declared for the entirety of Ukraine amid escalation warnings
An air raid alert has been declared for all of Ukraine’s regions, following warnings Vladimir Putin could launch an “immediate escalation” of the war.
An air raid alert has been declared for every one of Ukraine’s regions at the same time, in the latest sign that Russia is preparing for a major attack.
This morning, media outlet Nexta announced on Twitter that there had been an “an air-raid alert on the entire territory of Ukraine”.
The Kyiv Independent also announced that an air raid alert had been declared “in all of Ukraine’s regions at once”.
â—ï¸An air-raid alert on the entire territory of #Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/SyJgc4ryVx
— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) April 14, 2022
âš¡ï¸Air raid alert declared in all of Ukraine's regions at once.
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) April 14, 2022
Ukrainian MP Lesia Vasylenko revealed multiple explosions had occurred in Kyiv, with the ongoing air raid siren already sounding for almost an hour.
“3 explosions in #Kyiv right now. One after the other,” she wrote on Twitter.
“The air raid warning has been on for an hour. Most likely #putin gone livid because of the #Moskva sinking. Oh well, we’ll just keep standing to #Russia’s annoyance”
The alert follows warnings that President Vladimir Putin could launch an “immediate escalation” of his war in Ukraine after his warship the Mosvka was struck in an apparent Ukrainian missile attack.
Russia’s Black Sea flagship, which has been involved in the naval assault on Ukraine, has been “seriously damaged” by an explosion, Ukrainian state media reported on Thursday, as Moscow threatened to strike Kyiv’s command centres.
Kyiv claims the ship has “started sinking” and hundreds of the Moskva’s 510-strong crew may have been killed.
It was unclear exactly what caused the explosion on the Moskva missile cruiser or the extent of the damage, with both sides giving conflicting reports.
Russia’s defence ministry was quoted as saying the damage was caused by ammunition detonating “as a result of a fire”, adding that the cause of the blaze was being investigated.
But a spokesman for the Odessa military administration, Sergey Bratchuk, said on Telegram that “according to available data, the cause of the ‘serious damage’ was Neptune domestic cruise missiles”.
If Ukraine has really sunk the Mosvka, expect immediate escalation from Moscow.
— Clint Ehrlich (@ClintEhrlich) April 14, 2022
There will be a political imperative for the Kremlin to push this setback from the headlines with positive news.
We may see large-scale strategic bombing, something Russia has held back on to date.
Russia’s defence ministry said the crew had been evacuated, but anti-Russian politician Ilya Ponomarev said only 50 – less than 10 per cent – of the crew had been rescued so far.
The governor of Odessa also said Ukrainian forces had hit and sunk the vessel with missile strikes, but Oleksiy Arestovych, adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said “we don’t understand what happened”.
“If Ukraine has really sunk the Mosvka, expect immediate escalation from Moscow,” Russia analyst Clint Ehrlich wrote on Twitter.
“There will be a political imperative for the Kremlin to push this setback from the headlines with positive news. We may see large-scale strategic bombing, something Russia has held back on to date.”
Putin could unleash bombers
Last month, US intelligence experts told Newsweek that, contrary to widespread perception in the West, Mr Putin appeared to be holding back from unleashing the full power of his bombers.
Despite the shocking scenes of “massive” destruction, they cautioned that the Russian leader’s conduct to date did not suggest his goal was maximising civilian damage.
“We need to understand Russia’s actual conduct,” a retired Air Force officer, now working as an analyst with a military contractor advising the Pentagon, told the publication.
“If we merely convince ourselves that Russia is bombing indiscriminately, or [that] it is failing to inflict more harm because its personnel are not up to the task or because it is technically inept, then we are not seeing the real conflict.”
A senior Defence Intelligence Agency analyst also argued that much of the devastation seen in cities across Ukraine was the result of a contested ground war involving peer opponents.
“The heart of Kyiv has barely been touched,” he told Newsweek. “And almost all of the long-range strikes have been aimed at military targets.”
The DIA analyst added, “I know it’s hard … to swallow that the carnage and destruction could be much worse than it is. But that’s what the facts show. This suggests to me, at least, that Putin is not intentionally attacking civilians, that perhaps he is mindful that he needs to limit damage in order to leave an out for negotiations.”
The experts said the Russian Air Force had not launched any large-scale, methodical bombing campaign, with air and missile strikes almost exclusively in support of ground forces.
“Think of the Russian Air force as flying artillery,” the retired Air Force officer said. “It’s not an independent arm. It has undertaken no strategic air campaign as American observers might be used to from the last 30 years of American conflict.”
Russia says flagship ‘seriously damaged’
Moscow’s Black Sea fleet is blockading Mariupol and off the coast of Odessa, and its ships have been used to bombard coastal cities.
The Moskva gained notoriety early in the war when it called on Ukrainian border troops defending the strategic Snake Island to surrender, only to be defiantly refused.
It was previously deployed in the Syria conflict where it served as naval protection for the Russian forces’ Hmeimim air base.
The crew had been evacuated, the Russian defence ministry told state media, but “the ship was seriously damaged”.
Having initially expected to swiftly overcome its neighbour, Russia has faced fierce resistance and now even reprisals in its own territory — leading Moscow Wednesday to threaten to strike command centres in Kyiv if Ukraine continues to launch attacks on Russian soil.
The warning sparked alarm in Kyiv, which had been experiencing some respite after Russian forces withdrew from the region after failing to secure the capital.
It had been believed that Moscow was refocusing its war aims to the south and east of the country, with Ukrainian authorities warning of bloody new clashes to come in the eastern Donbas region.
With the war entering its seventh week, US President Joe Biden announced an $US800 million ($1 billion) military aid package for Ukraine that included helicopters and armoured personnel carriers.
The package includes armoured personnel carriers and helicopters, as well as some equipment Washington had previously refused to send to Ukraine for fear of escalating the conflict with nuclear-armed Russia.
The Pentagon said it was looking to provide Ukraine with weapons that would “give them a little more range and distance”, as the country prepares for an escalation of violence.
No electricity, no water
More than 40,000 people have left the country in the past 24 hours in a desperate attempt to flee the expected offensive, the United Nations said Wednesday.
This brings those displaced abroad to 4.6 million since the conflict began. The anticipated Russian onslaught is an apparent attempt to create an unbroken corridor from occupied Crimea to Donbas, where Russian-backed separatists control the Donetsk and Lugansk regions.
Part of that push involves taking the key southern port of Mariupol, which Ukrainian forces have struggled to hold and where President Zelensky estimates “tens of thousands” of civilians have died.
Russia’s defence ministry said Wednesday more than 1000 Ukrainian soldiers had surrendered in the city, as air strikes targeted the huge Azovstal iron and steel works.
Also in the crosshairs is Severodonetsk — the last easterly city still held by Ukrainian forces — where residents have endured heavy shelling as they pledge not to flee.
About 400 civilians have been buried there since the war began, according to the Ukrainian governor of the Lugansk region Sergiy Gaiday, with locals now grimly awaiting the Russian attack.
“There’s no electricity, no water,” resident Maria, who lives with her husband and mother-in-law, told AFP. “But I prefer to stay here, at home. If we leave, where will we go?” “The bombings? It’s like this all the time,” Maria said as explosions thundered in the distance.
‘Our citizens are murdered’
In areas that Russian forces have withdrawn from, officials and residents are piecing together the extent of the devastation left behind.
The Hague-based International Criminal Court, which deals with rights abuses, has dispatched investigators to Ukraine and told reporters the country had become a “crime scene”.
“We’re here because we have reasonable grounds to believe that crimes within the jurisdiction of the court are being committed,” the ICC’s chief prosecutor Karim Khan said on a visit to Bucha, a town now synonymous with scores of atrocities alleged to have been committed by Russian troops.
Officials in Bucha say more than 400 people were found dead there, with 25 rapes reported.
In nearby Gostomel, up to 400 people are unaccounted for, said regional prosecutor Andiy Tkach.
AFP witnessed dozens of body bags filling a refrigerated lorry trailer, as two others awaited more corpses.
“Our citizens are murdered and we must bury every person in the right way,” said Igor Karpishen, loading the truck.
Ukrainian authorities say Russian troops continue to kill civilians in areas they still occupy.
On Wednesday Ukrainian prosecutors accused soldiers of shooting six men and one woman in a home in the occupied southern village of Pravdyne the day before.
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