Ukraine Russia war news: Putin’s forces launch multiple missile strikes as Kyiv hits out at ‘sham’ elections

Attacks are now occurring daily, and on Tuesday the Russian Defense Ministry said its air defense systems had destroyed two drones over the Kaluga and Tver regions, which border the Moscow region, as well as a drone closer to the capital over the Istria district.

Maryam Zakir Hussain mapped the attacks:

The depleted uranium anti-tank missiles that will soon be in Ukraine’s military stockpiles have sparked debate about their use in the ongoing Russian invasion.

Finding common ground has never been easy for the leaders of the world’s largest economies, but the global impact of Russia’s war on Ukraine poses even greater challenges to meaningful agreement at this year’s Group of 20 meeting .

This year’s host, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has promised that Ukraine will not let the needs of the predominantly developing countries in the so-called “Global South” take a backseat, but many of these issues have been deeply affected by the war.

A Russian airstrike killed three civilians and injured four other people in a village in the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson on Friday, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said.

Klymenko said on the messaging app Telegram that the airstrike hit the village of Odradokamianka.

Russian air defenses shot down an enemy drone over northern Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov, the Russian-appointed head of the peninsula’s administration, said on Friday.

Five drones were shot down over three Russian regions on Thursday, one of which targeted the capital, officials said Thursday.

There were no reports of casualties.

Meanwhile, Russia launched a fourth day of airstrikes on the Ukrainian port city of Ismail on the Danube. Odessa regional governor Oleh Kiper said the attack damaged infrastructure, including grain silos, and left one person injured.

The attack came a day after a Russian missile hit a busy market in the eastern Donetsk town of Kostiantynivka, killing 17 people and wounding at least 32. The attack overshadowed a two-day visit by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken aimed at assessing Ukraine’s situation. The three-month-old counteroffensive signals continued US support for the fight.

Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry on Friday condemned the “sham elections” organized by Russia in the occupied Ukrainian territories, saying they were “worthless” and had no legal justification.

The ministry called on Ukraine’s international partners to denounce the votes and not recognize the results.

Voting on Russian-appointed parliaments in four regions only partially controlled by Russia began on Friday and is scheduled to end on Sunday.

Russian authorities are holding local elections in occupied parts of Ukraine this weekend to tighten their control over areas that Moscow illegally annexed a year ago and which are still not fully controlled.

Voting for the Russian-appointed parliaments in the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia regions begins on Friday and ends on Sunday. This has already been denounced by Kiev and the West.

“It represents a blatant violation of international law, which Russia continues to flout,” the Council of Europe, the continent’s leading human rights organization, said this week.

Kiev confirmed this opinion, saying in a parliamentary statement that the vote posed a danger to the lives of Ukrainians in areas where Russia “is conducting active hostilities.” Lawmakers called on other countries not to recognize the voting results.

It is important for Russia to continue voting to maintain the illusion of normality even though the Kremlin does not have full control over the annexed territories, said political scientist Abbas Gallyamov.

“The Russian authorities are doing their best to pretend that everything is going according to plan, that everything is fine. And if everything goes according to plan, then the political process should also go according to plan,” said Gallyamov, who worked as a speechwriter for Russian President Vladimir Putin when Putin was prime minister.

A Russian missile struck a police building in the central Ukrainian town of Kryvyi Rih on Friday, killing a police officer and wounding many other people, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko confirmed.

The police administration building was destroyed after the attack on President Volodymyr Zelensky’s hometown and rescue workers pulled several people from the rubble, Klymenko said on the messaging app Telegram.

He put the number of wounded at 25. In a later update, regional governor Serhiy Lysak said about 40 had been injured.

“A police officer was killed in a Russian attack,” Klymenko said in a Telegram post that was accompanied by photos showing a building reduced to rubble and rescue workers carrying a man away on a stretcher.

The discovery of drone debris on Romanian territory this week has sparked fears among some local residents that the war in neighboring Ukraine could spill over into their country as Russian forces bomb Ukrainian ports across the Danube from NATO member Romania.

Moscow aims to hamper Ukraine’s ability to export grain to global markets with a sustained campaign of attacks against Ukrainian Danube ports and has attacked the port of Ismail four times this week, Ukrainian officials say.

Opposite Izmail, pieces that apparently came from a drone were found near the Romanian village of Plauru, Romanian Defense Minister Angel Tilvar said on Wednesday. It was unclear whether Romanian authorities had determined when and from where the drone was launched, and Tilvar said the debris posed no threat but the development had caused unease among the EU country’s citizens.

Daniela Tanase, 46, who lives in Plauru with her husband and son, told The Associated Press that the drone strikes on Izmail this week woke her up and that villagers were “scared” of the ongoing Russian attacks.

“In the first phase (of the war) it was quieter, but now it has come to our territory,” she said. But added: “At the moment we have not thought about leaving the area – we hope it passes.”

Attacks are now occurring daily, and on Tuesday the Russian Defense Ministry said its air defense systems had destroyed two drones over the Kaluga and Tver regions, which border the Moscow region, as well as a drone closer to the capital over the Istria district.

A map shows where recent attacks have taken place. Maryam Zakir Hussain Reports: