War in Ukraine: more than 50 dead in a Russian strike, American long-range missiles… the latest on the situation

The identities of the victims have not been released, but Ukrainian military bloggers have suggested that some may have been cadets or conscripts undergoing training. Russia did not immediately comment on the attack. Two and a half years into the war, Moscow has stepped up its missile and drone attacks on Ukraine, which last week suffered its heaviest bombardment yet.

On Monday, ballistic and cruise missiles targeted the capital Kiev, causing powerful explosions. Ukraine also targeted Russia with more than 158 drones over the weekend, damaging an oil refinery near Moscow and a power plant. Zelensky on Tuesday again urged his allies to allow kyiv to use their long-range weapons to carry out strikes deeper into Russian territory.

“We keep repeating to all those who have the power to stop this terror that air defense systems and missiles are needed in Ukraine, not somewhere in a warehouse.” “Long-range strikes that can protect us from Russian terror are needed now, not later. Unfortunately, every day of delay means loss of human lives,”, Volodymyr Zelensky lamented.

Reactions to the Russian strike in Poltava

The deadly Russian strike on the Ukrainian city of Poltava is “a terrible reminder” "brutality" of Russian President Vladimir Putin, judged Tuesday the spokesman of the American National Security Council, John Kirby.

The head of British diplomacy David Lammy condemned Tuesday on X the deadly Russian strike on the Ukrainian city of Poltava, “the latest sickening act of aggression in the heinous and illegal war waged by (Vladimir) Putin in Ukraine”.

“Putin's brutality knows no bounds”, the head of German diplomacy denounced on Tuesday. The Russian president “must be held accountable”, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock urged on her X account.

Russian attacks kill three in Ukraine

Two people, including an 8-year-old child, were killed in the Ukrainian region of Zaporizhzhia overnight Monday and a third died in a missile attack on the central city of Dnipro, Ukrainian officials said.

An attack on a hotel complex in Zaporizhzhia killed a 38-year-old woman and her son, and injured her husband and daughter, who was receiving intensive care, the Ukrainian Defense Minister said. Over the past day, 313 attacks and shelling were recorded against 11 settlements, damaging several buildings in Zaporizhzhia, regional governor Ivan Fedorov said.

The Ukrainian Air Force said it shot down 27 of the 35 drones launched by Russia, which also used four missiles. The overnight attack in the southern part of the country did not cause any casualties, Mykolaiv Regional Governor Vitali Kim said. Ruslan Kravchenko, governor of the Kyiv region, also reported no damage to critical infrastructure or casualties as a result of air defense operations in the region.

However, debris caused fires in forest areas and minor damage to a building. In the northern city of Chernihiv, a drone strike lightly wounded two people, local authorities said.

Late Monday, Russian forces also launched missiles at the central city of Dnipro, killing one person and wounding six others, while damaging a residential area, Dnipropetrovsk Governor Serhi Lysak said on Telegram. Russia, which denies deliberately targeting civilians, did not immediately comment.

US reportedly close to supplying Ukraine with long-range missiles

The United States is moving closer to agreeing to supply long-range cruise missiles that Ukraine has requested, though actual deliveries could take months and there is no guarantee that Kiev will be allowed to use them on Russian soil, U.S. officials said.

AGM-158 JASSM air-to-ground missiles could be included in a new U.S. military aid package to be unveiled this fall, but a final decision has not been made, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The delivery of JASSM, a very precise long-range missile carrying a 450 kg explosive charge, would place within range of the Ukrainian army a number of Russian air bases from which take off the planes that drop dozens of particularly destructive guided gliding bombs on Ukrainian cities every day.

Military experts estimate that such an arsenal could force Moscow to move its planes, ammunition depots and troop concentrations several hundred kilometres from the Ukrainian border as a precaution, which would affect its war effort. There is no indication, however, that the Biden administration is willing to lift the restrictions it imposes on Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory, which are currently limited to border areas.

This veto by Washington, which fears an escalation with Moscow, particularly in the run-up to the presidential election on November 5 in the United States, prevents kyiv from using its Franco-British SCALP-EG/Storm Shadow cruise missiles, which have a greater power and range than the standard version of the JASSM (370 km), outside the territories occupied by the Russian army.

Reuters was unable to determine which version of the JASSM the United States plans to supply to Ukraine, but stocks of medium-range missiles are larger than those of the very long-range version (800 km). So far, the JASSM has only been integrated into American-designed aircraft.

Ukraine will eventually have several dozen F-16s supplied by its European allies, each capable of carrying two cruise missiles. In the shorter term, specialists are studying the possibility of making the JASSM usable from the Soviet-designed aircraft used by Kiev (MiG-29, Su-24 and Su-27), as is already the case with the SCALP-EG/Storm Shadow, one of the American officials said.

The older models of JASSM, manufactured by Lockheed Martin, are designed to be relatively stealthy, making them difficult to spot on radar. They can also fly close to the ground and be programmed to take circuitous routes that avoid air defenses. Last month, Politico reported that the Biden administration was “open” to the idea of ​​providing such missiles to Ukraine in the face of increased Russian bombing and Moscow's offensive in Donbass.

A congressman working on the issue, however, noted that the delivery of JASSMs would only have a real impact if it was accompanied by a lifting of restrictions on Kiev on how it could use them. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has in recent weeks made repeated calls for the ability to carry out strikes deep into Russian territory, explaining in particular that the Ukrainian army's incursion into the Russian region of Kursk was the only means at its disposal to remove the Russian threat from the border.