UK to supply tanks; Russian missiles hit across Ukraine

LONDON — U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Saturday promised to provide tanks and artillery systems to Ukraine, amid renewed missile attacks by Moscow targeting multiple Ukrainian cities for the first time in nearly two weeks.

Nine people were killed and 64 others wounded in the southeastern city of Dnipro, where a Russian missile strike destroyed a section of an apartment building, said Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the Ukrainian presidential office.

Infrastructure facilities were also hit in the western Lviv region and Ivano-Frankivsk regions, in the Odesa region on the Black Sea and in northeastern Kharkiv. Kyiv, the capital, also was targeted.

Bela Szandelszky, Associated Press

Ukrainians hold pictures of missing soldiers Saturday during a demonstration in downtown Kyiv, Ukraine.

Sunak made the pledge to provide Challenger 2 tanks and other artillery systems after speaking to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Saturday, the British leader’s Downing Street office said in a statement.

It didn’t say when the tanks would be delivered or how many. British media have reported that four British Army Challenger 2 main battle tanks will be sent to Eastern Europe immediately, with eight more to follow shortly after, without citing sources.

Zelenskyy tweeted his thanks to Sunak on Saturday “for the decisions that will not only strengthen us on the battlefield, but also send the right signal to other partners.”

Ukraine has for months sought to be supplied with heavier tanks, including the U.S. Abrams and the German Leopard 2 tanks, but Western leaders have treaded carefully.

The Czech Republic and Poland provided Soviet-era T-72 tanks to Ukrainian forces. Poland also expressed readiness to provide a company of Leopard tanks, but President Andrzej Duda stressed during his recent visit to the Ukrainian city of Lviv that the move would be possible only as an element in a larger international coalition of tank aid to Kyiv.

Russian forces fired missiles at Kyiv and other parts of Ukraine on Saturday in the first major barrage in days.

In Dnipro, rescuers used a crane to try to evacuate people trapped in the apartment building’s upper stories, some of whom were signaling with the flashlights on their mobile phones, Tymoshenko said on Telegram. He said there were likely people under the rubble.

Evgeniy Maloletka, Associated Press

Emergency workers clear the rubble Saturday after a Russian rocket hit a multistory building in the southeastern city of Dnipro, Ukraine, leaving many people under debris.

In the northeastern Kharkiv region, Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said two Russian missiles hit an infrastructure object again on Saturday afternoon, following a similar attack in the morning. In the city of Kharkiv, the subway suspended operations amid the attacks, according to its Telegram channel.

Another infrastructure facility was hit in the western Lviv region, according to Gov. Maksym Kozytskyi.

Air defense systems were activated in other regions of Ukraine, as well, and as another round of air raid sirens sounded across the country in the afternoon, regional officials urged local residents to seek shelter.

Vitali Kim, governor of the southern Mykolaiv region, hinted in a Telegram post that some missiles were intercepted over his province.

Military top commander Valeri Zaluzhny said that Russia fired 33 cruise missiles overall on Saturday, of which 21 were shot down.

Earlier in the day, explosions rocked Kyiv. The blasts occurred before air sirens sounded, which is unusual.

According to Ukrainian air force spokesman Yurii Ihnat, Russia attacked Kyiv with ballistic missiles — which are faster than cruise missiles or drones — from the north. “The ballistics are not easy for us to detect and shoot down,” he said. The warning about the missile threat was late because of the lack of radar data and information from other sources.

An infrastructure target was hit in the morning missile attack, according to Ukrainian officials.

Explosions were heard in the Dniprovskyi district, a residential area on the left bank of the Dnieper River, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. Klitschko also said fragments of a missile fell on a nonresidential area in the Holosiivskyi district on the right bank, and a fire briefly broke out in a building there. No casualties were immediately reported.

This was the first attack on the Ukrainian capital since Jan. 1.

Efrem Lukatsky, Associated Press

Soldiers carry the coffin of Oleksandr Grianyk of Azov regiment, who was killed May 8 defending Mariupol from the Russian invaders, during a funeral ceremony Saturday in St. Michael Cathedral in Kyiv, Ukraine. His remains were identified recently.

On Saturday morning, two Russian missiles hit Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city. The strikes with S-300 missiles targeted “energy and industrial objects of Kharkiv and the (outlying) region,” Syniehubov said. No casualties were reported but emergency power cuts in the city and other settlements of the region were possible, the official said.

In the city of Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine where fighting is intense, three people were killed in Russian artillery attacks on Saturday, Mayor Vitalii Barabash said. One person died in a rocket attack in Kryvyi Rih, in the Dnipropetrovsk region, an official said.

Hanna Malyar, Ukrainian deputy defense minister, said Saturday the “fierce battles for Soledar are continuing.”

Meanwhile, Moldovan authorities said Saturday that the remains of a rocket “originating from Russia’s air attacks on Ukraine” were found by border officials in a northern village near the country’s border with Ukraine. Moldova’s Interior Ministry said in a statement that the rocket debris was discovered in the village of Larga, in Briceni county, and a bomb squad was deployed to the area.