War in Ukraine: Russian Missiles Strike Lviv; US Warns China Against Kremlin Support | 10 Points

Russian forces on Friday struck Ukrainian cities with new missile strikes and shelling on the capital Kyiv and outskirts of Lviv ahead of talks between US President Joe Biden and Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on restraining its Kremlin allies.

HERE’S IS ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW

1. At least three blasts were heard near Lviv’s airport on Friday morning, with videos on social media showing large explosions and mushroom-shaped plumes of smoke rising. Lviv’s mayor, Andriy Sadovy, said several missiles has struck an aircraft maintenance facility, destroying buildings but causing no casualties. The city, in Western Ukraine near the Polish border, is hundreds of miles from Russia’s advance and has been one of the main destinations for Ukrainians forced to flee battle zones.
2. In capital Kyiv, one person was killed when parts of a Russian missile hit a residential building. Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko said 19 people were injured including four children. Kyiv has so far been spared a major assault, even as long columns of troops bore down from the northwest and east, halted at the gates in heavy fighting that destroyed suburbs. Residents in the capital have endured nightly deadly missile attacks.
3. Ukrainian human rights ombudswoman Lyudmyla Denisova said 130 people had been rescued so far from the rubble of a theatre hit by an air strike on Wednesday in the besieged eastern city of Mariupol.
4. In the hard-pressed eastern city of Kharkiv, Russian strikes demolished the six-storey building of a higher-education institution, killing one person and leaving another trapped in the wreckage, officials said.
5. Britain’s defence ministry said Russia was struggling to resupply its forward troops “with even basic essentials such as food and fuel”. “Incessant Ukrainian counterattacks are forcing Russia to divert large number of troops to defend their own supply lines. This is severely limiting Russia’s offensive potential,” it said.
6. In the southeast, where Russian forces have been trying to expand territory held by pro-Russian separatists, Ukraine’s Luhansk regional governor Serhiy Haidai said Russians were dug in around the city of Rubizhne and heavily shelling with casualties as yet unknown.
7. The United States is concerned China is “considering directly assisting Russia with military equipment to use in Ukraine,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said. In a call later Friday, US President Joe Biden, who described Putin as a “murderous dictator”, will warn Xi Jinping that China “will bear responsibility for any actions it takes to support Russia’s aggression”, Blinken told reporters. The two leaders are due to speak at 1300 GMT.
8. Russia has routinely denied that it is targeting civilians, claiming for instance without evidence that hardline Ukrainian nationalists blew up the theatre in Mariupol. Local officials say more than 2,000 people have died so far in indiscriminate shelling of the city, and 80 percent of its housing has been destroyed.
9. Hours before the phone call, China sailed an aircraft carrier through the sensitive Taiwan Strait – shadowed by a US destroyer. The carrier Shandong sailed close to the Taiwan-controlled island of Kinmen, which sits directly opposite the Chinese city of Xiamen, a source told Reuters. “Around 10:30 a.m. the CV-17 appeared around 30 nautical miles to the southwest of Kinmen, and was photographed by a passenger on a civilian flight,” the source said, referring to the Shandong’s official service number.
10. The International Monetary Fund, World Bank and other top world lenders on Friday warned of “extensive” economic fallout from the Ukraine war and expressed “horror” at the “devastating human catastrophe”. “The entire global economy will feel the effects of the crisis through slower growth, trade disruptions, and steeper inflation,” read a joint statement from institutions including the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

(With inputs from AFP, Reuters)

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