Sirens sounded Friday evening in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, as a result of Russian bombing, and five explosions shook the Ukrainian capital, which were heard near a power plant north of the city, according to the mayor of Kiev.
Kiev Vitali Klitschko said that the timing of the explosions was close to three to five minutes, noting that the bridges in the city were placed under special protection and control as the Russian forces approached, while checkpoints were set up at the main entrances and near strategic sites in the city.
Hours earlier, the British Ministry of Defense said that the Russian army was trying to advance To the Ukrainian capital Kiev from a new axis following its failure to control the city of Chernihiv.
The ministry said on Twitter that Russian forces were still more than 50 kilometers from the city center of Kiev, noting reports of sporadic clashes in the northern suburbs of the Ukrainian capital.
In a development, the Interfax news agency quoted the Russian Defense Ministry as saying, on Friday, that Russian forces had isolated the cities of Sumy and Konotop in northeastern Ukraine.
On Friday, a senior US defense official said that Russia was facing stronger resistance than it expected in its war once morest Ukraine, including its advance towards the capital, Kiev, and it appeared to have lost some momentum in the offensive.
“According to our assessment, we see that there is a stronger resistance on the part of the Ukrainians than the Russians expected,” the official added, noting that the control and control centers of the Ukrainian army “were not damaged.”
In addition, Sputnik news agency reported, on Friday, that the Russian Defense Ministry had confiscated a large amount of weapons supplied by the West to Ukraine.
She added that the Russian Defense Ministry also stated that the army had destroyed 211 military facilities of the Ukrainian military infrastructure, noting that among the military facilities that were destroyed in Ukraine were 17 command and communication centers, 19 “S-300” and “Osa” systems and 39 radars.
And she continued: “During the special military operation, 6 fighters, one helicopter and 5 marches of the Ukrainian army were shot down.”
And earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, on Friday, considered the European response to the Russian war “too slow”, and demanded that all response measures be put “on the table.”
“How will you defend yourself if you are so slow to help Ukraine?” Zelensky asked in a new statement. “Cancellation of visas for Russians? Severing Swift’s (Russia’s global banking system) ties? Complete isolation of Russia? Recalling ambassadors? Oil embargo? Today, everything should be on the table because this is a threat to all of us, to the whole of Europe.”
Fighting took place on Friday morning in a neighborhood in the north of Kiev, while Russian forces appeared to tighten the noose around the Ukrainian capital.
“Terrible launch of Russian ballistic missiles at Kiev. The last time our capital witnessed something similar was in 1941 when it was attacked by Nazi Germany. Ukraine has defeated this demon and will triumph over it,” Ukraine’s foreign minister wrote in a tweet.
Russian news agencies on Friday quoted a Kremlin spokesman as saying that Russian President Vladimir Putin is ready to send a delegation to Minsk, the capital of his ally Belarus, for negotiations with Ukraine, where his forces are launching an offensive.
“Vladimir Putin is ready to send a Russian delegation at the levels of the defense and foreign ministries and the presidential administration to Minsk for negotiations with a Ukrainian delegation,” spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
