Anti-Putin armed groups ‘launch incursion’ inside Russia – Ukraine war

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Three people have now reportedly died after a Russian missile slammed into two apartment buildings in the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih on Tuesday.

Seven children were among the 36 injured, the local governor said.

President Volodymyr Zelensky, who was born and raised in Kryviy Rih, said on Telegram that search operations were under way and “will continue as long as they are needed.”

“Two buildings were hit, one five storeys, one nine storeys,” Serhiy Lysak, governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, wrote on Telegram. “The number of injured is constantly rising as is the number of children injured.”

The city has been a frequent target of Russian attacks.

A Russian missile killed two people after it slammed into an apartment building in the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih on Tuesday President Volodymyr Zelensky said.

The governor of Dnipropetrovsk region, Serhiy Lysak, said more than 30 people were injured, five of them seriously.

“A search is underway for people under the rubble,” Zelensky wrote on Telegram. “There are many injured, some seriously, including a child.”

he United States is preparing a new military aid package for Ukraine that could be worth as much as $400 million, two US officials told Reuters on Tuesday.

One of the officials said that the funding for this package is from credits refunded to the Pentagon for recent purchases and is expected to contain artillery.

The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said an announcement was expected later on Tuesday.

The White House has been scrambling to find ways to send more military assistance given the situation on the battlefield and the resistance to the funding from Republican hardliners.

Winged explosives weighing up to 1,500 kilograms – and nicknamed the ‘building destroyer’ – have had a devastating impact wherever they have been used, writes Tom Watling. Kyiv is battling them as best they can, but needs Western allies to step up and provide more weapons, air defences and ammunition

Leaders of U.S. intelligence agencies urgently pressed members of the House of Representatives on Tuesday to approve additional military assistance for Ukraine, saying it would not only boost Kyiv as it fights Russia but discourage Chinese aggression.

“That has consequences for American interests that go … directly to our interests in the Indo-Pacific,” CIA Director Williams Burns told the House of Representatives’ Intelligence committee’s annual hearing on Worldwide Threats to U.S. security.

The United States is preparing a new military aid package for Ukraine that could be worth as much as $400 million, two U.S. officials told Reuters on Tuesday, the first such move in months as additional funds for Kyiv remain blocked by Republican leaders in Congress.

The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said an announcement was expected later on Tuesday.

Denmark will provide a new military aid package including Caesar artillery systems and ammunition to Ukraine worth around 2.3 billion Danish crowns (£264 million), the Danish Defence Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.

Svitlana Chepalova was supposed to marry her Marine Corps fiance on 24 February 2022. Instead, he joined the battle to save Mariupol and was captured. Like thousands more wives and partners of Ukrainian prisoners of war, she is increasingly alarmed by reports of the harsh conditions and daily beatings in Russian prison colonies. Arpan Rai reports

Schools in the Russian city of Kursk are switching to online classes, the Tass news agency cited local authorities as saying on Tuesday, after an attempted Ukrainian incursion into the region.

Ukraine-based armed groups claimed on Tuesday they had crossed the border into Russia‘s Kursk and Belgorod regions, while Russia said it had prevented such incursions. The Kursk region also came under attack from Ukrainian drones overnight.