War in Ukraine: Dnipro airport ‘destroyed’ as battle looms in east

Russian forces fired rockets into Ukraine’s Luhansk and Dnipro regions on Sunday, Ukrainian officials said, completely destroying an airport and wounding at least five people.

Valentyn Reznichenko, governor of the central Dnipropetrovsk region, said emergency workers were combing through an infrastructure facility that was hit in the town of Zvonetsky, adding that details on casualties would be given later.

“Overnight high-precision missiles destroyed the base and headquarters of the nationalist Dnepr battalion in Zvonetsky, which also recently received reinforcements from foreign mercenaries,” Russia’s defence ministry said.

Mr Reznichenko said on Telegram that there had also been an attack on the airport in Dnipro city.

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“The airport itself was destroyed, as well as nearby infrastructure. And the rockets fly and fly,” Mr Reznichenko said.

Mr Reznichenko said earlier that an attack on Dnipro had wounded one person and the rockets had sparked a fire that was eventually put out. A missile had also hit a building in the Pavlograd district, he added.

Separately, the head of the Dnipro region council, Mykola Lukashuk, said five staffers of the state emergency service had been wounded by the strike on the airport.

Serhiy Gaidai, governor of Luhansk, an eastern region bordering Russia, wrote earlier on Telegram that a school and a high-rise apartment building had been hit in the city of Sievierodonetsk.

“Fortunately, no casualties,” Mr Gaidai said.

Reuters could not immediately confirm the reports.

In the east, calls by Ukrainian officials for civilians to flee gained more urgency after Friday’s missile strike on a train station in the city of Kramatorsk in the Donetsk region, packed with women, children and the elderly trying to get out.

Ukrainian officials said more than 50 people were killed in the strike.

Russia has denied responsibility, saying the missiles used in the attack were only used by Ukraine’s military. The US says it believes Russian forces were responsible.

Reuters was unable to verify the details of attack.

Residents of the region of Luhansk would have nine trains on Sunday to get out on Mr Gaidai wrote on the Telegram message service.

Grave

Earlier on Sunday, a grave with at least two civilian bodies was found in Buzova village near Kyiv, a Ukrainian official said, the latest reported grave discovered after Russian forces withdrew from areas north of the capital to focus their assault on the east.

Taras Didych, head of the Dmytrivka community that includes Buzova, told Ukrainian television that a grave with dozens of bodies had been found in a ditch near a petrol station.

“Right now, as we are speaking, we are digging out two bodies of villagers, who were killed. Other details I cannot disclose,” Mr Didych told Reuters by telephone.

“There are other people who we cannot find. They could be in different places, but this doesn’t lessen the pain of the loss of loved ones.”

Reuters was not immediately able to confirm the report.

Mounting civilian casualties have triggered widespread international condemnation and new sanctions, in particular over hundreds of deaths in the town of Bucha, to the northwest of Kyiv that until just over a week ago was occupied by Russian forces.

Moscow has rejected accusations of war crimes by Ukraine and western countries. It has denied targeting civilians in what it calls a "special operation" to demilitarise and "denazify" its southern neighbour. Ukraine and western nations have dismissed this as a baseless pretext for war.

Russia has failed to take any major cities since invading on February 24th but Ukraine says Russia is gathering its forces in the east for a major assault and has urged people to flee.

Russia is seeking to establish a land corridor from Crimea, which it annexed in 2014, and the eastern Donbas region, which is partly held by Moscow-backed separatists, Britain’s defence ministry said.

Russian armed forces are also looking to strengthen troop numbers with personnel discharged from military service since 2012, it said in a regular intelligence update on Sunday.

Satellite images released by private US firm Maxar dated April 8th showed armoured vehicles and trucks in a military convoy moving south toward Donbas through a town some 100km (62 miles) east of Kharkiv.

Some cities in the east are under heavy shelling with tens of thousands of people unable to evacuate.

Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in an address late on Saturday Russia's use of force was "a catastrophe that will inevitably hit everyone".

Ukraine was ready to fight for victory while looking for a diplomatic end to the war, he said, and renewed his appeal to western allies for a total ban on Russian energy products and more weapons for Ukraine.

Johnson meeting

UK prime minister Boris Johnson met Mr Zelenskiy in Kyiv on Saturday and pledged armoured vehicles and anti-ship missile systems, alongside support for World Bank loans and Britain's commitment to move away from using Russian fossil fuels.

The European Union, which on Friday banned Russian coal imports among other products, has yet to touch oil and gas imports from Russia.

Ukraine itself late on Saturday announced a full ban on imports from Russia, its key trading partner before the war with some $6 billion in annual imports.

"The enemy's budget will not receive these funds, which will reduce its potential to finance the war," economy minister Yulia Svyrydenko wrote on Facebook.

Mr Johnson was the latest foreign leader to visit Kyiv after Russian forces pulled back from the area, marking a return to some degree of normality for the capital. Italy said it planned to reopen its embassy this month. – Reuters