KYIV, Ukraine, 4 Apr: Russian forces fired drones at two apartment buildings and a power plant in Ukraine\u2019s second-largest city, killing four people, local authorities said Thursday, as the Kremlin\u2019s forces apparently set in motion their strategy for the coming months of war by escalating the bombardment of civilian areas.
\nShahed drones smashed into two apartment buildings in Kharkiv, near the Russian border, which has frequently been targeted during more than two years of war. Other drones targeted the power grid.
\nThe Kremlin\u2019s forces in recent months have stepped up their aerial barrages of Ukraine, hitting urban areas. The approximately 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line is largely deadlocked, but Kyiv officials say Moscow\u2019s troops have recently been probing for Ukrainian weaknesses on the front line ahead of an expected large-scale Russian offensive in the summer.
\nThe Institute for the Study of War said the goal of Russia\u2019s escalated attacks on civilian areas and the country\u2019s power grid may be to compel Ukraine\u2019s army to deploy air defense systems away from the front line. That would allow Russia to provide more air cover for its ground operations on the battlefield, the think tank said late Wednesday.
\nRussian forces apparently have increased the scale of their mechanized ground assaults in parts of the front line in recent weeks, it added, apparently seeking gains while Ukrainian forces are kept waiting for the arrival of vital new military supplies from their Western partners.
\nWith the support of China, Russia has built its forces back up close to full strength, according to a senior U.S. official.
\n\u201cWe have assessed over the course of the last couple of months that Russia has almost completely reconstituted militarily,\u201d U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said Wednesday.
\nIn Kharkiv, three first responders were killed when Russia struck a multistory building twice in quick succession, local authorities said. Six people were wounded at that location. Another 14-story building was hit by a drone, killing a 69-year-old woman.
\nUkrainian officials have previously accused Russia of targeting rescue workers by hitting residential buildings with two consecutive missiles \u2014 the first one to draw crews to the scene and the second one to wound or kill them. The tactic is called a \u201cdouble tap\u201d in military jargon. Russians used the same method in Syria\u2019s civil war.
\nOther first responders have also been victims of the fighting. The World Health Organization said Thursday that ambulance workers and other health transport staff face a high risk of injury or death.
\n\u201cMany emergency teams come under fire either on the way to a call or at their bases,\u201d WHO said in a report.
\n\u201cThis is a horrifying pattern,\u201d Dr. Emanuele Bruni, WHO\u2019s incident manager in Ukraine, was quoted as saying in the report. \u201cThese attacks threaten their safety and further devastate communities that have been living under constant shelling for more than two years.\u201d
\nUkrainian soldiers shot down 11 of the 20 drones Russia launched against Ukraine during the night, the General Staff said.
\nRussia also attacked energy infrastructure in the Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions over the past day, wounding two people, the Ministry of Energy said Thursday.
\nSome 700,000 people in Kharkiv lost power last week after a massive missile attack hit the city\u2019s thermal power plant. Repairs are ongoing.
\n\u201cEach manifestation of Russian terror once again proves that the country-terrorist deserves only one thing \u2014 a tribunal,\u201d Ukraine\u2019s human rights chief, Dmytro Lubinets, said on Telegram in response to the attack. AP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KYIV, Ukraine, 4 Apr: Russian forces fired drones at two apartment buildings and a power plant in Ukraine\u2019s second-largest city, killing four people, local authorities said Thursday, as the Kremlin\u2019s forces apparently set in motion their strategy for the coming months of war by escalating the bombardment of civilian areas. Shahed drones smashed into two […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-238278","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238278\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}