Russia hits Ukraine from the air and sea, governor says Dnipro airport destroyed
CBC
Russian forces destroyed an airport and wounded at least five people as they fired missiles on Sunday at Ukraine's fourth-largest city, Dnipro, a Ukrainian official said.
Valentyn Reznichenko, governor of the central Dnipropetrovsk region that includes Dnipro, said the airport was hit twice.
The Russian Defence Ministry said its air-launched missiles hit Ukraine's S-300 air defence missile systems in two locations, while sea-launched cruise missiles destroyed a Ukrainian unit's headquarters in the Dnipro region.
Neither side's military claims could be independently verified.
Meanwhile, experts said the next phase of the battle may begin with a full-scale offensive that could start within days. The outcome could determine the course of the conflict, which has flattened cities, killed untold thousands and isolated Moscow economically and politically.
Questions remain about the ability of Russia's depleted and demoralized forces to conquer much ground after their advance on the capital, Kyiv, was repelled by determined Ukrainian defenders.
Britain's Defence Ministry reported Sunday that Russian forces were trying to compensate for mounting casualties by recalling veterans discharged in the past decade.
However, Western military analysts say Russia's assault was increasingly focusing on a sickle-shaped arc of Eastern Ukraine — from Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, in the north to Kherson in the south.
The narrower effort could alleviate the Russian problem, earlier in the war, of spreading their offensive too widely over too great a geographic area.
On Sunday, Russian forces shelled government-controlled Kharkiv and sent reinforcements toward Izyum to the southeast in a bid to break Ukraine's defences, the Ukrainian military command said.
The Russians also kept up their siege of Mariupol, a key southern port city that has been under attack and surrounded for nearly 1½ months.
Ukraine's prosecutor general on Sunday said her team has documented 5,600 cases of war crimes perpetrated by the Russian government and its leading figures since the invasion began Feb. 24.
Speaking to British broadcaster Sky News, Iryna Venediktova said Ukraine has identified 500 suspects, including "top" Russian military personnel, politicians and "propaganda agents."
She added that Russian President Vladimir Putin was a "main war criminal of the 21st century," but in accordance with international law, as long as the Russian president is in power, he enjoys diplomatic immunity and cannot be prosecuted unless the initiative is taken by the International Criminal Court.
