Russians Hit Kyiv with Cruise Missiles, Targets Western-Supplied Tanks

After five weeks of a relatively safe atmosphere in Ukraine’s capital city of Kyiv, Russia has launched strikes in the capital city, apparently targeting Western-donated tanks in an apparent move to show that it still has striking capabilities well within Ukrainian soil.

Fighting has largely been focused in the east in Severodonetsk and in the south, where Ukrainians are trying to liberate the southern port city of Kherson. Russia, partly being annoyed by all the support Ukraine is getting from its western allies, decided it was a good idea to take out some of these western-donated tanks.

This attack comes after Russian President Vladimir Putin had warned Kyiv that it would destroy any Western deliveries of long-range rocket systems to Ukraine after the US announced that it would be donating $700 million worth of military equipment, which include four M142 HIMARS to Ukraine along with five counter-artillery radars, two air surveillance radars, 1,000 Javelins, 6,000 anti-armor weapons, four Mi-17 helicopters, and some 15,000 15mm artillery rounds.

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The Russian President stated that they would “strike at those targets which we have not yet been hitting” as Western arms were actively prolonging the conflict, according to Putin. He also went on to say that the drones donated by western states were “cracking them like nuts” as “dozens” were claimed to be destroyed by Russian air defenses.

“All this fuss around additional deliveries of weapons, in my opinion, has only one goal: to drag out the armed conflict as much as possible,” Putin said to Rossiya 1, adding that the western donation of HIMARS was just something to make up for the losses of the military equipment Russia had already destroyed.

“We understand that this supply [of advance rocket systems] from the United States and some other countries is meant to make up for the losses of this military equipment,” Putin stated. “This is nothing new. It doesn’t change anything in essence,” he added.

Targeting donated T-72s (possibly from Poland), explosions were heard in the areas of Darnytskyi and Dniprovskyi last Sunday. According to the Russians, it had successfully destroyed these T-72 tanks that, according to them, were just sitting in storage at random car repair businesses.

The Ukrainian authorities were quick to deny this. Chair of the Board of the Ukrainian Railways Oleksandr Kamyshin said that there were no tanks at the facilities they bombed and that all that were present in those buildings were “cars that we repair.”

“There are no such tanks at the plant, as well as no military equipment. There are only cars that we repair. These carriages we need for export – these are, in particular, grain carriages,” Kamyshin said.

Apparently, what Russia actually hit were rail car storage facilities where the railway system would repair these carriages. It was hit by four missiles, which are suspected to be X-22 cruise missiles (British intel says they were Kh-101) fired from the Caspian Sea. One had been destroyed by air defenses, but the four missiles managed to hit Kyiv, as said before.