Day 67: Russia says hit weapons supplied by West as Pelosi visits Kiev – Russia says it struck at weapons supplied to Ukraine by the West as US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi meets President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kiev during an unannounced visit.
Pelosi, the highest-ranking American leader to visit Ukraine since the start of the war, arrived on Saturday, leading a Congressional delegation.
She met Zelensky to vow continued support for Ukraine. “Our delegation traveled to Kiev to send an unmistakable and resounding message to the entire world: America stands firmly with Ukraine,” Pelosi said in a statement.
Western nations have imposed broad economic sanctions on Russia and have been shipping increasing quantities of weapons to confront Russian forces.
Pelosi said on Friday she hoped to pass a $33 billion aid package for Ukraine that President Joe Biden has requested “as soon as possible”.
Russia’s defense ministry said on Sunday it had carried out a missile strike on a military airfield near the port city of Odesa, destroying a runway and a hangar containing weapons and ammunition supplied to Ukraine by the US and European countries.
On Saturday, Ukraine said Russian missiles had knocked out a newly constructed runway at Odesa’s main airport.
Russia’s defense ministry accused Ukraine’s forces of shelling a school, kindergarten and cemetery in villages in the occupied southern Kherson region. The ministry said civilians had been killed and wounded.
Russian forces captured the town of Kherson, 100 km north of Crimea, in March and since then have mostly occupied Mariupol, a strategic eastern port city on the Azov Sea.
Ukraine’s military said in a bulletin on Sunday that Russian forces were fighting to break beyond Kherson’s administrative borders and prepare the way for attacks on the cities of Mykolayiv and Kryvyi Rih.
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