Russia launched airstrikes on Kyiv on Sunday, claiming to have destroyed foreign-donated tanks, as President Vladimir Putin warned that any supply of longer-range missile systems from the West would force them to target "things that we haven't yet struck."
Military analysts believe Russia wants to take control of Ukraine's troubled eastern industrial Donbas area, where Russia-backed rebels have been fighting the Ukrainian government since 2014, before any U.S. weaponry arrives.
The cryptic threat of military escalation by Putin did not specify what the next targets would be. It comes only days after the U.S. announced plans to provide Ukraine with $700 million in security support.
The military support includes four precision-guided medium-range rocket systems, Javelin anti tank weapons, tanks, radars, tactical vehicles, and more.
According to Ukraine, a train repair business was damaged by rockets aimed towards the capital. A Ukrainian official reported that Russian airstrikes in the eastern city of Druzhkivka destroyed structures and killed at least one person.
Last Monday, the Pentagon estimated that getting U.S. weaponry onto the battlefield would take at least three weeks.
Residents recalled waking up to the sound of missile strikes and being surrounded by rubble and glass.
Svitlana Romashkina described the experience as "like something out of a horror movie."
The Russian Defense Ministry stated that air-launched precision missiles were used to strike military repair workshops in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, particularly in Druzhkivka.
Ukraine's General Staff reported that Russian forces fired five X-22 cruise missiles against Kyiv from the Caspian Sea, one of which was intercepted by air defenses. Four more missiles hit "infrastructure facilities," but no one was hurt, Ukraine said.
Nuclear facility operator Energoatom said that a cruise missile passed 220 kilometers south of the Pivdennoukrainsk nuclear power plant, apparently headed straight to Kiev.
It warned of the potential for a nuclear disaster if even a single fragment of a missile had struck the facility.
According to the Russian Defense Ministry's Telegram app, the missiles that hit Kyiv destroyed T-72 tanks and other armored equipment supplied by Eastern European countries.
Following that, Ukraine's railway authorities took reporters on a guided tour of a railcar repair plant in eastern Kyiv that it claimed was damaged by four missiles.
According to the authorities, no military equipment was held there, and Associated Press reporters spotted no evidence of any in the facility's demolished building.
