Ukraine has urged its allies to close loopholes in sanctions against Russia that are allowing it to maintain weapons production, after six people were killed and 17 injured in missile attacks on the Black Sea port of Odesa and two cities in the eastern Donetsk region.
The attacks in the early hours of Wednesday came as Ukraine claimed to have recaptured seven villages in the first days of its counteroffensive, and Kremlin ally Belarus said it had received tactical nuclear weapons from Russia and would “not hesitate” to use them if threatened.
“All the missiles fired by Russia were produced in the spring of 2023. In all of them, without exception, we find Western-made microelectronics supplied by private companies to Russia through third countries, bypassing sanctions restrictions,” said Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior aide to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
“Isn’t it time to close the obvious loopholes and gaps in the sanctions packages?” he said, describing it as “frankly weird” for Nato states to allow Russia to make missiles using their technology, while also giving Ukraine air defence systems to shoot them down.
The strike on Odesa at about 3am shook locals awake and was accompanied by air-raid sirens and the boom of air-defence systems engaging other incoming missiles. The Ukrainian military said it destroyed three Russian rockets and nine drones overnight.
Three people died and 13 were hurt in Odesa when a missile or debris from an intercepted rocket tore into an apartment block, an office building and a supermarket warehouse. In the cities of Kramatorsk and Kostiantynivka in Kyiv-held parts of Donetsk region, three people were killed and four wounded when missiles hit residential areas.
The attacks came a day after at least 11 people were killed and more than 30 injured in a Russian strike on the eastern industrial city of Kryvyi Rih, the hometown of Mr Zelenskiy.
“Unfortunately, Russia still has the ability to obtain critical components for missile production from companies around the world, including companies from some partner countries,” he said in his nightly address after Tuesday’s rocket strike.
“Ukraine has imposed sanctions on all companies in Russia that produce missiles. Such complete sanctions should be imposed globally against all of them ... If someone acts as an intermediary or works together with Russia so that terrorists can continue to blow up residential buildings and kill people, such entities – whether business or government – deserve a response from the world. A tough response.”
Kyiv’s military says it has liberated at least seven villages in Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions in the first days of its long-awaited counteroffensive against Russia’s invasion force and is retaking territory around the flanks of the ruined eastern city of Bakhmut, which Moscow’s troops captured in May after months of shelling and then street-to-street combat.
The Kremlin has not acknowledged any Ukrainian gains and says its forces are inflicting heavy casualties on the enemy and striking depots in the rear where Kyiv’s military is storing powerful weapons and ammunition received from western allies.
Analysts say the main battles of Ukraine’s counteroffensive lie ahead, when it deploys its reserves and reaches defensive lines in occupied territory that Russia has had months to prepare.
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The Kremlin has said plans to deploy tactical nuclear weapons to neighbouring Belarus in July are on schedule, but Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko told Russian television that at least some of the arms had already arrived.
“We have missiles and bombs that we have received from Russia,” he said, claiming they were “three times more powerful” than the atomic bombs dropped by the United States on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
“I believe it is unlikely that anyone would want to wage war against a country that has such weapons. It is a weapon of deterrence,” he said. “God forbid if I have to make a decision to use this weapon ... But I won’t hesitate should there be an aggression against us.”
