Russian strikes on Ukrainian cities killed at least nine people and injured dozens more, as Kyiv’s forces targeted several large oil refineries deep inside Russia in another wave of long-range drone attacks.
Anti-Kremlin militias conducting a cross-border raid from Ukraine urged people in two frontier regions of Russia to evacuate on Wednesday and said they would disrupt this weekend’s presidential election, as incumbent Vladimir Putin warned that his country was “technically” ready for nuclear war if its sovereignty was threatened.
At least nine people were killed and more than 50 injured when Russian rockets and drones hit apartment buildings in the Ukrainian cities of Kryvyi Rih, Sumy and Myrnohrad, and officials said the casualty list could grow as rescue workers searched through the rubble.
Russia said about 60 drones were shot down over several regions on Wednesday, and at least two large oil refineries were hit and set ablaze hundreds of kilometres from the Ukrainian border, in the second consecutive day of such attacks.
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“We are systematically implementing a well-calculated strategy to reduce Russia’s economic potential,” Ukraine’s SBU security service told local media. “Our task is to deprive the enemy of resources and reduce the flow of oil money and fuel that the aggressor sends directly to the war and the killing of Ukrainian citizens.”
Mr Putin told Russian television: “This is all happening against the backdrop of failures on the front line... I have no doubt that the main goal is, if not to disrupt the presidential elections in Russia, then to somehow interfere with the normal process.”
Russia will hold a tightly controlled election this weekend that is bound to give the increasingly autocratic Mr Putin another six years in power. No genuine opponents are running, the only anti-war candidate has been banned from the vote, and Mr Putin’s main critic, Alexei Navalny, died in an Arctic jail last month after years of repression.
Three groups of Russian militants who oppose Mr Putin and are fighting for Ukraine crossed the border on Tuesday and clashed with local security forces. On Wednesday, they called for civilians in the Russian frontier provinces of Belgorod and Kursk to evacuate for their own safety.
“Putin’s assassins are carrying out massive strikes on peaceful Ukrainian cities... Due to this, we are forced to fire upon military positions located in the cities of Belgorod and Kursk,” the Freedom of Russia Legion, Russian Volunteer Corps and Siberian Battalion said in a joint statement.
“We urge the local authorities to save human lives and begin evacuating the cities of the Kursk region and Belgorod region.”
Alexei Baranovsky, a member of the Freedom of Russia Legion, told Ukraine’s New Voice media outlet that the militants were “showing how [Russia’s opposition] should act in these quasi-elections... We are making efforts to disrupt these elections.”
Mr Putin repeated a threat to use nuclear weapons if Russia’s sovereignty was endangered and said that “from a military-technical point of view, we are, of course, ready”. He added that he expected the US to ensure that such a scenario did not ensue.
After Leonid Volkov, a close ally of Mr Navalny, was attacked by a hammer-wielding assailant on Tuesday night in Vilnius, Lithuanian president Gitanas Nauseda said: “I can only say one thing to Putin: nobody is afraid of you here.”
Amid disputes over funding for Ukraine in Washington, the US said it would send $300 million (€274 million) in arms to Kyiv after making savings on Pentagon contracts.
