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A Russian missile struck a museum building in a Ukrainian city on Tuesday, killing at least two people and wounding 10 others, as part of a relentless shelling as Ukraine prepares its army for an expected spring counteroffensive.
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Ukrainian officials said the Russian military used S-300 anti-aircraft missiles to strike Kupyansk in the Kharkov region, hitting the local history museum in the city centre.
The Russian military has repeatedly used S-300s, which Ukrainian air defenses were unable to intercept, to attack ground targets.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy posted a video from the website showing destroyed buildings and emergency workers inspecting the damage.
“Terrorist states are doing everything they can to completely destroy us,” Zelensky said.
“Our history, our culture, our people. Killing Ukrainians in absolutely barbaric ways.”
A museum worker was killed, Zelensky said, and Kharkiv regional governor Oleh Syniehubov later reported another victim’s body was dragged from under the rubble.
Three people were hospitalized and seven suffered minor injuries, Syniehubov said.
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Kupyansk was captured by Russian forces in the early stages of the Russian invasion but was retaken by Ukrainian forces in a surprise counteroffensive in September that drove the Russians out of large swathes of the Kharkov region.
A woman was also killed in Russian shelling of the town of Dvorichna near Kupiansk, while two civilians were killed in eastern Donetsk, according to the Ukrainian president’s office.
Russian heavy artillery hit the cities of Marhanets and Nikopol on Tuesday night, wounding two people, Dnepropetrovsk regional governor Serhiy Lisak said.
Both are on the west bank of the Dnieper River, just across from the Russian-controlled Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, which both Russia and Ukraine say have been threatened by shelling in the area.
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The Ukrainian military is now preparing for a new massive counteroffensive, relying on the latest supplies of Western main battle tanks and other weapons, as well as recruits trained in the West.
Zelensky met with top military officials on Tuesday to discuss the situation on the battlefield and the outlook for new weapons supplies and troop readiness.
“We must speed up the pace of weapons supplies, because every day of delay costs the lives of our soldiers,” Zelensky said on Facebook.
In an RBC-Ukraine interview published Monday, Major General Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukraine’s military intelligence service, described the planned counteroffensive as a “landmark campaign in Ukraine’s modern history” that would allow the country to “recapture important areas”.
Meanwhile, the Kremlin has regularly alerted the West to Russia’s nuclear arsenal in an effort to deter the United States and its allies from increasing arms supplies to Ukraine.
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The United States and its NATO allies have condemned Moscow’s nuclear rhetoric as dangerous and irresponsible, but noted they have seen no change in Russia’s nuclear posture.
Security Council vice-chairman Dmitry Medvedev, chaired by Russian President Vladimir Putin, warned on Tuesday that “the world may very well be on the brink of another world war,” declaring that Moscow would not hesitate to Use nuclear weapons if it faces an existential threat.
Describing atomic weapons as the key to Russia’s survival, Medvedev said “for our country, nuclear weapons are the bond that holds the country together”.
He vowed the Kremlin would achieve its goals in Ukraine, noting that Russia’s nuclear doctrine envisages that it can use atomic weapons in response to a nuclear attack or a conventional weapons attack that threatens the “existence” of the Russian state.
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“Our potential opponents should not underestimate this,” Medvedev said.
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