Ukraine accuses Russia of launching missiles from Belarusian airspace

UKRAINE: Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko held their own meeting on Saturday at Putin’s summer residence near St. Petersburg, where they discussed increasing weapons shipments to Belarus, including nuclear weapons.

The barrage of missiles struck a wide swath of territory as Ukrainian forces struggled to hold on to the eastern city of Lysychansk, Kyiv’s last foothold against a Russian onslaught in the Luhansk region.

A military base near the western Ukrainian town of Yavoriv was hit by four Russian missiles fired from the Black Sea, regional governor Maksym Kozytskyy said. He said two other missiles were intercepted. Details of casualties were not immediately known, but at least 35 people were killed in a similar attack on Yavoriv in March. Missile strikes were also reported on Chernihiv and Zhytomyr in the north, with a total of 48 missiles launched, according to Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak.

Ukraine charged that the strikes from Belarusian airspace reflected a deliberate effort by the Kremlin to “draw Belarus into the war in Ukraine as a direct participant.”

Belarus’s Lukashenko is a long-standing and loyal ally of Putin, and allowed Russian troops and materiel to remain in his country after joint exercises in February. Those troops, tanks and other equipment were then used in Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. – TIMES OF INDIA