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Tag: missile strike

  • Boris Johnson says Putin threatened him with missile strike

    Boris Johnson says Putin threatened him with missile strike

    Prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Boris Johnson has made claims that Vladimir Putin called him and threatened him with a missile strike in a “extraordinary” conversation.

    The then-prime minister said Mr Putin told him it “would only take a minute”.

    Mr Johnson said the comment was made after he warned the war would be an “utter catastrophe” during a “very long” call in February 2022.

    Details of the exchange are revealed in a BBC documentary, examining Mr Putin’s interactions with world leaders.

    Mr Johnson warned Mr Putin that invading Ukraine would lead to Western sanctions and more Nato troops on Russia’s borders.

    He also tried to deter Russian military action by telling Mr Putin that Ukraine would not join Nato “for the foreseeable future”.

    But Mr Johnson said: “He threatened me at one point, and he said, ‘Boris, I don’t want to hurt you but, with a missile, it would only take a minute’ or something like that. Jolly.

    “But I think from the very relaxed tone that he was taking, the sort of air of detachment that he seemed to have, he was just playing along with my attempts to get him to negotiate.”

    President Putin had been “very familiar” during the “most extraordinary call”, Mr Johnson said.

    It is impossible to know if Mr Putin’s threat was genuine.

    However, given previous Russian attacks on the UK – most recently in Salisbury in 2018 – any threat from the Russian leader, however lightly delivered, is probably one Mr Johnson would have had no choice but to take seriously.

    Boris Johnson met Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv on 1 February 2022
    Image caption,Boris Johnson received a call from President Putin the day after he met Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv

    Nine days later, on 11 February, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace flew to Moscow to meet his Russian counterpart, Sergei Shoigu.

    The BBC documentary Putin Vs the West reveals Mr Wallace left with assurances that Russia would not invade Ukraine, but he said both sides knew it was a lie.

    He described it as a “demonstration of bullying or strength, which is: I’m going to lie to you, you know I’m lying and I know you know I’m lying and I’m still going to lie to you.

    “I think it was about saying ‘I’m powerful’,” Mr Wallace said.

    He said the “fairly chilling, but direct lie” had confirmed his belief that Russia would invade.

    As he left the meeting, he said Gen Valery Gerasimov – Russia’s chief of general staff – told him “never again will we be humiliated”.

    Less than a fortnight later, as tanks rolled over the border on 24 February, Mr Johnson received a phone call in the middle of the night from President Zelensky.

    “Zelensky’s very, very calm,” Mr Johnson recalled. “But, he tells me, you know, they’re attacking everywhere.”

    Mr Johnson says he offered to help move the president to safety.

    “He doesn’t take me up on that offer. He heroically stayed where he was.”

    Putin Vs the West will be broadcast on Monday 30 January on BBC 2 at 21:00, and will be available on the iPlayer in the UK.

    Source: BBC

  • Zaporizhzhia: Missile strike kills newborn baby at Ukraine hospital

    According to emergency services, a newborn baby was killed in a Russian missile strike on a maternity unit in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region.

    The only woman in the facility at the time, the baby’s mother, and a doctor were rescued from the rubble.

    Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelensky, has accused Russia of instilling “terror and murder” in his country.

    The Zaporizhzhia region, which contains a critical nuclear plant, has been the target of repeated Russian attacks.

    Russian missiles struck the maternity ward of a hospital in the Ukraine-held town of Vilnyansk, close to the frontline, according to Ukrainian emergency services.

    Although the area is held by Ukraine, the whole Zaporizhzhia region is claimed by Russia after self-styled referendums in September.

    Elsewhere on Wednesday, Ukrainian officials said two people were killed in shelling on a residential building in Kupiansk – a town in the Kharkiv region which was retaken by Ukrainian forces in September.

    Speaking after both attacks, President Zelensky accused Russia of trying “to achieve with terror and murder what it wasn’t able to achieve for nine months” on the battlefield.

    Several medical facilities have come under Russian attack during the nine-month war, including a strike on a maternity hospital in Mariupol in March which left three dead, including a child.

    Russia at the time said the attack had been staged.

    The World Health Organization has documented 703 attacks on health infrastructure since Russia’s invasion began on 24 February – it defines an attack as involving violence as well as threatened violence against hospitals, ambulances and medical supplies.

    The UK Ministry of Defence said on Wednesday that Russian commanders were likely using Iranian-made unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) to “prioritise medical facilities as targets of opportunity and strike them with guided munitions if identified”.

    Parts of the wider Zaporizhzhia region are occupied by Russia, including the nuclear plant, which was overrun by Russian forces weeks after the invasion began.

    Russia annexed Zaporizhzhia and other Ukrainian territory in September but has been pushed back on the battlefield in the south, notably in Kherson region. The two armies face each other across the River Dnipro.

  • Kyiv advised to conserve electricity after Russian missile attack

    Residents of Kyiv have been asked to reduce their evening electricity use after a Russian missile strike knocked out a power plant near the capital.

    Power was restored earlier in Ukraine, according to officials, after Russian missiles struck the electricity infrastructure.

    But Ukraine’s state energy operator Ukrenergo has still called for the reduction between 17:00 and 23:00 (15:00 – 21:00 GMT), warning of possible power cuts.

    The request was not confined to Kyiv.

    The deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential administration, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, said the populations of Zhytomyr, Cherkasy, and Chernihiv should also save electricity.

    “If this advice is ignored, we will have difficulties and it will be necessary to take out the candles,” he warned on Telegram.

    Ukrenergo has urged residents to save electricity in the evening by not using energy-guzzling appliances, switching off unnecessary lighting, and doing their washing at night.

    However, the BBC’s Paul Adams reports that Kyiv streets are already darker than usual at night, but “life very much goes on”.

    The energy warning comes as more heavy fighting is reported north of Russian-held Kherson.

     

    Kirill Stremousov, a Russian-appointed leader in the southern region, said Ukrainian shelling was coming from the Dudchany area, on the west bank of the Dnieper river (called Dnipro by Ukrainians).

    Advancing Ukrainian forces have repeatedly bombarded bridges over the river, aiming to cut off Russian troops in Kherson city.

    Russian-installed officials in the city have urged Moscow to help transfer Kherson families to Russian cities as Ukrainian shelling intensifies.

    President Vladimir Putin has declared Kherson and three other Ukrainian regions to be part of Russia – a move condemned internationally, after hastily-organized so-called referendums in the regions.

    Meanwhile, Ukrainian prosecutors have accused Russian soldiers of shooting and killing the chief conductor of the Kherson Music and Drama Theatre, Yuri Kerpatenko, in his home. It is widely reported in Ukrainian media, but there are few details. He is said to have refused to cooperate with the occupation authorities.

    Russian oil depot fire

    For two days running the governor of Belgorod, a Russian city 40km (25 miles) north of Ukraine, has reported Ukrainian cross-border shelling. One shell caused a major fire at an oil depot near the city on Saturday, Vyacheslav Gladkov said, adding later that firefighters had extinguished it.

    Ukrainian shelling set fire to an electricity substation in Belgorod on Friday, he reported on Telegram. In that case, too the fire was contained. Kyiv has not commented on the Russian claims, but there have been explosions in the Belgorod region previously, which Russia blamed on Ukrainian shelling.

    Oil depot fire near Belgorod - pic from Governor Gladkov (Telegram)
    IMAGE SOURCE,VVGLADKOV/TELEGRAM Image caption, Oil depot fire near Belgorod – pic from Governor Gladkov (Telegram)

    On Friday President Putin said he saw no need for further massive missile strikes against Ukraine “for now”, on the scale of last Monday’s, which hit Kyiv and other cities, killing at least 20 civilians. Mr Putin said those strikes were retaliation for the attack that damaged Russia’s huge Kerch bridge – a key strategic link to annexed Crimea.

    Another focus of fighting in the south is Zaporizhzhia – Ukrainian officials in the city say it was hit by more Russian missiles and Iranian-made Shahed “kamikaze” drones overnight. There was damage to energy facilities and industrial infrastructure there.

    The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant – Europe’s largest – lies just south of the city, under Russian control, and repeated shelling in the area has raised fears of a nuclear disaster.

    The US has announced $725m (£649m) of further military aid for Ukraine, including ammunition for Himars rocket systems, artillery rounds, anti-tank weapons and Humvee armoured vehicles. The US has provided more than $17bn of military aid since Russia’s 24 February invasion – by far the largest contribution among Ukraine’s Western allies.

    On Ukraine’s northern border, Belarus says a new Russian military contingent has arrived – part of what it describes as a regional border protection force. Belarus has hosted Russian forces involved in the war in Ukraine, including those who launched an abortive assault on Kyiv. But so far it has not sent its own troops across the border.

     

  • Ukrainian foreign minister: ‘This nonsense about being provoked must stop’

    Dmytro Kuleba has responded to Vladimir Putin‘s comments in the last few minutes, saying: “No, Putin was not provoked to unleash missile terror.”

    Mr Putin claimed Monday’s deadly missile strikes targeting cities in Ukraine were in retaliation for its “terrorist action” against Russian territory – namely the hit on Kerch bridge this weekend.

    But Mr Kuleba refutes this, saying: “This nonsense about being provoked must stop. He does not need anything to provoke him in order to commit heinous crimes.”

     

  • Donetsk missile strike: About six civilians, including a teenager killed

    A firefighter was consoling a mother whose teenage child had been murdered by shelling on a bus.

    The strike, according to officials supported by Russia, struck Donetsk’s separatist-controlled city centre.

    They blamed Ukrainian forces for the strike on a covered market.

    A Reuters journalist at the scene saw the body of a teenager and four others, as well as several wounded citizens.

    There has been no immediate comment from Ukraine, and the reports of who was behind the shelling cannot be independently verified.