Damascus: Israeli missiles hit the international airport and several military sites in the Syrian province of Aleppo, killing one soldier and injuring seven others, the army said in a statement on Tuesday.
The attack was carried out just before midnight, hitting the airport and a number of military positions in the countryside of Aleppo, it said, adding that two civilians were among the wounded, reports Xinhua news agency.
The international airport of Aleppo as well as that of the capital Damascus had been attacked earlier by Israel and went out of service for days.
Meanwhile, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported a number of explosions in the area of the Aleppo international airport and the al-Nayrab air base.
The Britain-based watchdog stopped short of giving more details but said the attack is the 16th of its kind since the beginning of 2023.
In March, Israel struck Aleppo’s airport on two different occasions and put it out of commission for several days.
(Except for the headline, the story has not been edited by Siasat staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
Damascus: Syrian air defences intercepted a fresh Israeli missile attack in the central province of Homs, state media reported.
The air defences were responding to hostile targets in the skies of Homs, said the report, spelling out no further details, state news agency SANA reported on Saturday.
Three civilians were injured in the attack, according to the Syrian Defence Ministry, Xinhua news agency reported.
Meanwhile, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor, said the missile destroyed a weapon depot for the Lebanese Hezbollah group in the Daba’a air base in Homs.
Damascus: Syrian air defences intercepted a fresh Israeli missile attack in the central province of Homs on Saturday, the state media said in a report.
The air defences were responding to hostile targets in the skies of Homs, said the report, without giving out further details.
Three civilians were injured in the attack, Xinhua news agency quoted the Syrian Defence Ministry as saying.
Meanwhile, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor, said the missile destroyed a weapon depot for the Lebanese Hezbollah militant group in the Daba’a air base in Homs.
(Except for the headline, the story has not been edited by Siasat staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
Russian cruise missiles have killed at least 19 people in the central Ukrainian cities of Uman and Dnipro, days after Ukraine’s leader, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, begged his allies for more air defence supplies.
The attacks were part of a wave of Russian missile and drone strikes in the early hours of Friday morning, the most intense aerial bombing of major Ukrainian cities in weeks.
In Uman, at least 17 people were killed including two children when a missile hit a high-rise building. The impact sheared off a column of apartments, reducing them to rubble at the base of the tower, and leaving nearby rooms on fire.
To the south, on the outskirts of the port city of Dnipro, a mother and her three-year-old daughter were killed in their home in a rural suburb.
Seven missiles targeted the city, Serhii Lysak, the head of the military administration for the Dnipro region told a news conference. Fragments of one of them, shot down by air defences, appeared to have fallen on the house, police told neighbours.
“It was loud enough to understand that someone was probably hurt,” said Oleksandr Kalinichenko, a neighbour who lives about 300 metres away.
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Most of Russia’s attacks were intercepted, with 21 out of 23 missiles shot down by the Ukrainian military. The missiles that got through were a grim reminder of why the country is so vulnerable when Moscow aims its weapons at civilian targets.
Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, tweeted: “Missile strikes killing innocent Ukrainians in their sleep, including a … child, is Russia’s response to all peace initiatives.”
Air raid alarms sounded across the country in the early hours of Friday, while explosions were heard in Kyiv, and southern Mykolaiv was targeted again.
Twenty-four hours earlier, another round of cruise missiles aimed at the port city had killed at least one person and ended nearly four months of relative calm there.
Ukraine strengthened air defences over the winter, with help from western allies, after a Russian bombing campaign against power stations and other civilian infrastructure tried to cut off heating and power to major cities.
However, leaked US military documents dated to February this year warned that by May the country risked running out of missiles and ammunition.
Earlier this month, Ukrainian officials pleaded with Nato allies for more supplies, the Financial Times reported, fearing large-scale Russian bombing campaigns could break through depleted systems.
The missiles launched on Friday were the first to target Kyiv in 50 days, although Iranian-made drones have tried to break the city’s air defences repeatedly in that time.
The wave of strikes comes as Moscow, and the world, wait for Kyiv to launch a spring counter-offensive against Russian forces.
The Ukrainian defence minister, Oleskii Reznikov, on Friday said it was close to beginning the assault. “As soon as there is God’s will, the weather and a decision by commanders, we will do it,” he told an online news briefing.
Ukraine was “to a high percentage ready”, he said, with new modern weapons to provide an “iron fist”.
On Thursday, Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg,said almost all the combat vehicles promised to Ukraine by western allies had been delivered, putting Ukraine in a “strong position” to recover further ground.
Last year brought a string of humiliating military defeats for the invading army, but Russia still occupies nearly a fifth of Ukrainian territory, which Zelenskiy has vowed to retake.
Stoltenberg said the western allies had sent more than 1,550 armoured vehicles, 230 tanks and “vast amounts of ammunition” to Ukraine, Reuters reported. They have also trained and equipped about 30,000 troops, the equivalent of more than nine new brigades. “They will put Ukraine in a strong position to continue to retake occupied territory.” he said.
On Thursday, the Kremlin said it still needed to achieve the “aims” of its invasion, a day after China’s president, Xi Jinping, spoke to Zelenskiy over the phone for an hour.
Beijing, which has a close strategic partnership with Moscow, has drawn up a peace proposal for Ukraine, but there is no sign that either side is ready to stop fighting and come to the negotiating table.
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
The Russian attack killed Veronika in her bed on Friday morning, but left her childish chalk drawings of a happy family intact on the wall of their home.
Portraits of “Mama”, “Nika” (her nickname), her uncles, grandparents and even the family cat “Kuzia” – the names written in by an adult – stretch all along the front of the house.
They end only where the plaster was stripped off by an explosion and a fire that took the lives of the three-year-old and her mother, early on Friday morning.
Hours later, Kuzia the cat looked on, bewildered and bedraggled by a steady rain, as “Uncle Seriozha” from the wall drawings tried to sort through the charred wreckage of their single-storey home. He hurled fragments of twisted metal out into the yard, sidestepping a doll thrown to the floor by the blast.
He had been inside too last night, he said, sleeping in the room next to the one that took a direct hit. His parents-in-law are in hospital. His wife, Veronika’s maternal aunt, wandered around the house and yard, silenced by the scale of the tragedy.
Neighbours were stunned at how brutally Russia’s invasion had arrived in this semi-rural suburb of Dnipro. The river port is an industrial and military hub, “closed” to foreigners under the Soviet Union, and a target in repeated wars.
But Veronika’s family home was a long drive from the river, the docks and the factories, in an area where fruit trees in full blossom shade small vegetable patches outside village homes, and rows of tulips brighten muddy lanes.
“Its the first time we’ve had an attack here. We already thought the war was something far away, that wasn’t going to affect us directly,” said Olha, 68, a friend of “grandpa Vova” from the paintings, who was injured.
The inside of Veronika’s house. Photograph: Emre Çaylak/The Guardian
She works in a shop, and said on Friday morning soldiers who stopped by for supplies told her they had removed an unexploded missile fragment from the damaged house.
That matched the damage to the house, where one wall was missing and there had been a fierce fire, but several walls and windows were still intact. There was no crater, which a cruise missile striking such a small house would be likely to leave behind.
A few hundred metres away, some other piece of falling weaponry had hit the high roof and gables of another house. The gaping holes and black fire damage were visible across a field from Veronika’s home.
Oleksandr Kalinichenko looking at the destroyed house. Photograph: Emre Çaylak/The Guardian
Oleksandr Kalinichenko, a neighbour who lives around 300 metres away, said he had ignored air raid sirens until he saw the flash of an explosion. “My wife shouted at me: get into the shelter, immediately,” he said. “At first I thought it was some way away.”
He crawled into the basement, and when he came out, two young neighbours had been killed. “I want to tell you the Russians are pissing us off. I am 70 years old but I want to volunteer for the army, I want to strangle them with my own hands.”
Serhii Lysak, the head of the military administration for the Dnipro region, visited the shattered house to inspect the damage.
“Today we don’t need other proof to show the terrorist activity of the Russian federation. You can see what they have done,” he said, standing in front of Nika’s family portraits.
Veronika’s house in Dnipro Photograph: Emre Çaylak/The Guardian
The young family had only become targets of a Russian strike because they were trying to protect themselves from missiles, said one neighbour, who asked not to be named.
They moved into the suburban house from their own apartment in the city, after a bloody strike on a Dnipro high-rise apartment building in January. The deadliest single assault on the city during this war, the missile killed at least 40 people and injured dozens more.
A similar tragedy unfolded in the central city of Uman on Friday, where another missile slipped through air defences and destroyed much of an apartment building, killing at least 10 people. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy has begged his allies for more anti-aircraft missiles, warning that the country’s supplies are running low.
The disaster in Uman shows the risks to civilians if air defences fail. But even when they work, Veronika’s death, in a place her family took her for protection, is a reminder that nowhere is entirely safe in a country at war.
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
The Ukrainian military shot down a hypersonic Russian missile over Kyiv using the newly acquired Patriot missile defense system, an air force commander confirmed on Saturday.
It’s the first time Ukraine has been known to intercept one of Moscow’s most sophisticated weapons, after receiving the long-sought, American-made defense batteries from the U.S., Germany and the Netherlands.
“Yes, we shot down the ‘unique’ Kinzhal,” Air Force Commander Mykola Oleshchuk said on Telegram, referring to a Kh-47 missile, which flies at 10 times the speed of sound. “It happened during the night time attack on May 4 in the skies of the Kyiv region.”
Ukraine confirmed that two Patriot batteries were operational last month, following training on the system from the U.S. and Germany, according to the Kyiv Independent. The interception of the hypersonic missile also represents a major success for the Patriot technology, in use on the battlefield after 20 years of upgrades.
Kyiv had initially denied that it had shot down the Kinzhal missile.
Ukraine first asked Washington for Patriot systems in 2021, well before Russia’s current war of aggression began in February 2022. The U.S. and Germany have each sent at least one Patriot battery to Ukraine; and the Netherlands said it has provided two.
Separately, a well-known Russian nationalist writer was injured in a car bomb, reported TASS, Russia’s state-owned news service. Zakhar Prilepin was wounded in the Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod, in a blast that killed one person, according to the report.
A Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman said the blast was the “direct responsibility of the U.S. and Britain,” without providing evidence, according to Reuters.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters he planned a National Security Council meeting to discuss the launch. Asked over the accuracy of Japan’s information dissemination about future North Korean launches, Kishida said the government is checking related information including alerts.
North Korea commonly test-launches missiles toward the waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan. All its past ICBM launches were made in the area, but on elevated trajectories to avoid neighboring countries.
South Korea and Japan typically don’t issue evacuation orders for North Korean launches unless they determine weapons flew in the direction of their territories.
But after Thursday’s launch, the Japanese government urged people on the northernmost island of Hokkaido to seek shelter. The government then corrected and retracted its missile alert, saying its analysis showed there was no possibility of a missile landing near Hokkaido.
It was unclear why Japan issued the order for a missile that didn’t fall near the island, but the incident suggested it was being cautious about North Korea’s evolving missile threats.
Last October, Japanese authorities issued a similar evacuation order when a North Korean intermediate-range missile flew over Japan in a launch that demonstrated the potential to reach the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam. At the time, Japanese authorities alerted residents in its northeastern regions to seek shelter and halted trains, although no damages were reported before the weapon landed in the Pacific.
Thursday’s launch came days after its leader Kim Jong Un vowed to enhance his nuclear arsenal in more “practical and offensive” ways.
North Korea has launched about 100 missiles this year and in 2022, many of them nuclear-capable weapons that place the U.S. mainland, South Korea and Japan within striking distance.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Damascus: Two soldiers were wounded in an Israeli missile attack near the Syrian capital Damascus on early Thursday morning.
“At around 1.20am, the Israeli enemy carried out an aerial aggression from the direction of the occupied Golan Heights targeting several positions in the vicinity of Damascus,” Syrian News Agency (SANA) reported.
“The attack wounded two soldiers and caused some material losses,” it said.
Syrian air defence intercepted several missiles.
According to Agence France-Presse (AFP), explosions were heard early Thursday morning in the Syrian capital.
On March 7, a similar bombing put the airport out of service for days and killed three people, including a Syrian officer.
During the past years, Israel launched hundreds of air strikes in Syria, which targeted sites of the Syrian army, Iranian and Lebanese Hezbollah targets, including weapons and ammunition depots in separate areas.
Syria has been witnessing a bloody conflict since 2011, which has killed about half a million people, caused massive damage to infrastructure, and led to the displacement of millions of people inside and outside the country.
People watch a TV showing a file image of North Korea’s missile launch during a news program at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Saturday, May 7, 2022. | Ahn Young-joon/AP Photo
By Associated Press
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea said Monday it test-fired two cruise missiles from a submarine off its east coast, the latest in the country’s series of weapons tests.
The test on Sunday came a day before the U.S. and South Korean militaries begin large-scale joint military drills that North Korea views as a rehearsal for invasion.
The official Korean Central News Agency said Monday that the missile launches were meant to confirm the reliability of the weapons system and gauge underwater-to-surface offensive operations of the country’s submarine units. The missile tests show the North’s resolve to respond with “overwhelming powerful forces” to “the U.S. imperialists and the South Korean puppet forces,” which the news agency said “are getting evermore undisguised in their anti-(North Korea) military maneuvers.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
People watch a TV showing a file image of North Korea’s missile launch during a news program at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Saturday, May 7, 2022. | Ahn Young-joon/AP Photo
By Associated Press
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea said Monday it test-fired two cruise missiles from a submarine off its east coast, the latest in the country’s series of weapons tests.
The test on Sunday came a day before the U.S. and South Korean militaries begin large-scale joint military drills that North Korea views as a rehearsal for invasion.
The official Korean Central News Agency said Monday that the missile launches were meant to confirm the reliability of the weapons system and gauge underwater-to-surface offensive operations of the country’s submarine units. The missile tests show the North’s resolve to respond with “overwhelming powerful forces” to “the U.S. imperialists and the South Korean puppet forces,” which the news agency said “are getting evermore undisguised in their anti-(North Korea) military maneuvers.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
