Moscow also said its troops had broken Ukrainian defenses to enter the strategic southern port city of Mariupol
\n KYIV
\nRussia said Saturday that it had unleashed hypersonic missiles against an arms depot in Ukraine, the first use of the next-generation weapons in combat, after Kyiv\u2019s embattled leader pressed for \u201cmeaningful\u201d talks to end a conflict now in its fourth week.
\nMoscow also said its troops had broken Ukrainian defenses to enter the strategic southern port city of Mariupol, and destroyed radio and intelligence sites just outside Odessa.
\nIf confirmed, the use of Russia\u2019s new Kinzhal (Dagger) hypersonic missiles, which can elude most defense systems, would mark a new escalation in Russia\u2019s campaign to force Ukraine to abandon hopes of closer ties with the West.
\nUkrainian air force spokesman Yuri Ignat told AFP that the weapons depot in Deliatyn, a village near the border with Romania, had indeed been hit but \u201cwe have no information of the type of missile.\u201d
\n\u201cThere has been damage, destruction and the detonation of munitions,\u201d he said. \u201cThey are using all the missiles in their arsenal against us.\u201d
\nUkraine officials also admitted they had \u201ctemporarily\u201d lost access to the Sea of Azov, though Russia has effectively controlled the coastline for weeks after surrounding Mariupol.
\nRussian President Vladimir Putin, who unveiled the Kinzhal missile in 2018, has termed it \u201can ideal weapon\u201d that flies at 10 times the speed of sound \u2014 analysts say Russia is leading the hypersonics race, followed by China and the US.
\nMoscow\u2019s announcement came hours after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky again appealed for peace, urging Russia to accept \u201cmeaningful\u201d talks in his latest Facebook video. \u201cThis is the time to meet, to talk, time for renewing territorial integrity and fairness for Ukraine,\u201d he said. \u201cOtherwise, Russia\u2019s losses will be such that several generations will not recover.\u201d
\nUkraine claimed Saturday that a Russian general had been killed by strikes on an airfield outside Kherson, just north of Crimea, saying he was the fifth top-ranking officer killed since the invasion began on February 24.
\nFierce resistance has managed to stall Russian forces outside Kviv and several other cities in the east, making them vulnerable to Ukrainian attacks against supply lines. Britain\u2019s defense ministry said Saturday that Russia has been forced to \u201cchange its operational approach and is now pursuing a strategy of attrition.\u201d
\n\u201cThis is likely to involve the indiscriminate use of firepower resulting in increased civilian casualties,\u201d it warned.
\nBut as in previous negotiations there appeared to be little progress in reaching a cease-fire, with Putin accusing Ukraine of \u201cnumerous war crimes\u201d during a call late Friday with French President Emmanuel Macron.
\nBritish Foreign Secretary Liz Truss accused Moscow of using the talks as a \u201csmokescreen\u201d as it carried out \u201cappalling atrocities,\u201d saying she was \u201cvery skeptical\u201d they would produce a breakthrough.
\nFriday\u2019s attack on the arms depot was the latest strike in western Ukraine, which until a few days ago had remained relatively unscathed by Russia\u2019s push toward key cities from the north and east.
\nOn Friday, Russian forces destroyed an aircraft repair plant near the airport of Lviv, where millions of people have fled as rockets and shelling continue to rain down on Kyiv.
\nIn Mariupol, rescuers were still searching for hundreds of people trapped under the wreckage of a bombed theater where over 1,000 people had been seeking shelter when it was struck on Wednesday.
\nThere was still no information about potential fatalities, Zelensky said, but 130 people had been saved so far \u2014 some \u201cheavily injured.\u201d
\n\u201cThis is no longer Mariupol, it\u2019s hell,\u201d said resident Tamara Kavunenko, 58. \u201cThe streets are full with the bodies of civilians.\u201d
\nRussian forces also carried out a large-scale air strike on Mykolaiv in the south on Friday, killing dozens of young Ukrainian ensigns at their brigade headquarters.
\n\u201cNo fewer than 200 soldiers were sleeping in the barracks\u201d at the time of the attack, a Ukrainian serviceman on the ground, 22-year-old Maxim, told AFP.
\n\u201cAt least 50 bodies have been recovered, but we do not know how many others are in the rubble,\u201d he said.
\nMore than 3.25 million refugees have fled Ukraine and countless others have sought havens in the country\u2019s west, though Putin said his forces were doing \u201ceverything possible\u201d to avoid civilian casualties during his latest call with Macron, according to the Kremlin.
\nBut Zelensky accused Russian forces of blocking aid around hotspot areas.
\n\u201cI escaped war to reach stability, only to find myself trapped in another war,\u201d said Mazen Dammag, a Yemeni who fled his war-torn homeland nearly six years ago for Ukraine.
\nHe and several friends hired taxis to take them from Odessa to Poland, some 1,000 kilometers north, and eventually Bremen in Germany, where he spoke with AFP by video.
\nRussia\u2019s ally China told US President Joe Biden on Friday that the war \u201cin no one\u2019s interest,\u201d but showed no sign of giving in to US pressure to join Western condemnation of Russia.
\nBiden warned his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping of \u201cconsequences\u201d for any financial or military aid for Russia, a move that could turn the standoff into a global confrontation.
\nPutin appears undeterred by further threats or sanctions, holding a triumphalist rally in Moscow on Friday to mark eight years since Russia\u2019s seizure of Crimea, saying his goal in Ukraine was \u201cto rid these people from their suffering and genocide.\u201d
\nIn a call to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Putin accused Ukrainian authorities of stalling talks by \u201cputting forward more and more unrealistic proposals.\u201d
\nRussia wants Ukraine to disarm and disavow all Western alliances, in particular by joining NATO or seeking closer integration with the European Union \u2014 steps that Kyiv says would turn it into a vassal state of Moscow.
\nRussia\u2019s top negotiator said Friday that Moscow and Kyiv had brought their positions \u201cas close as possible\u201d on a proposal for Ukraine to become a neutral state.
\nBut Mikhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Zelensky taking part in the negotiations, said his country\u2019s position had not budged.
\nSwitzerland said Saturday that despite its longstanding neutrality, it would impose the same sanctions against Russia as the EU.
\nPresident Ignazio Cassis said his country would not stand by in the \u201cconfrontation between democracy and barbarism,\u201d saying the war was being driven by \u201ca devastating madness which shatters all the principles and values of our civilization.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Moscow also said its troops had broken Ukrainian defenses to enter the strategic southern port city of Mariupol KYIV Russia said Saturday that it had unleashed hypersonic missiles against an arms depot in Ukraine, the first use of the next-generation weapons in combat, after Kyiv\u2019s embattled leader pressed for \u201cmeaningful\u201d talks to end a conflict […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":250333,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[5133,5132,338,456],"class_list":{"0":"post-250306","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-hypersonic-missile-strike","9":"tag-peace-deal","10":"tag-russia","11":"tag-ukraine"},"yoast_head":"\n