Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov told reporters on Thursday Moscow has not ordered the bombing of Ukrainian cities despite widespread reports and video appearing to show otherwise.
“Russia’s armed forces carry out no missile, air or artillery strikes against Ukrainian cities,” Konashenkov said on February 24, as quoted by TASS, a Russian state-owned news agency.
Russia’s Defense Ministry issued the statement hours before CBS News on February 24 said its journalists on the ground in Kharkiv and Kyiv, Ukraine’s national capital, witnessed airstrikes hit local targets on Thursday.
“CBS News teams in the capital city of Kyiv and in Kharkiv, close to the Russian border in the country’s east, has heard shelling throughout the day, and Russian forces have moved onto Ukrainian territory,” the U.S.-based news outlet revealed.
CBS News reporter Haley Ott on Thursday detailed seeing a “second wave” of Russian airstrikes “hit targets in Kyiv, with smoke seen billowing above the city, and one strike believed to have hit near a railway bridge in central Kyiv.”
“Missiles have hit about a dozen airfields in Ukraine including Kyiv’s airport Boryspil and facilities in the Black Sea port city of Odesa,” the Financial Times reported on February 24.
Odesa, also spelled Odessa, is the name of both an oblast (province) and city in Ukraine. The Ukrainian state-run press agency Ukrinform on February 24 reported that a Russian airstrike killed 18 people “in the village of Lypetske, Odesa region.”
Reports published later on Thursday indicated Russia’s military had expanded its bombardment of Ukrainian cities to include Mariupol and the Ukrainian Black Sea island of Zmiyinyi.
“The Ukrainian city of Mariupol is under heavy fire with reports of hundreds of explosions. The city is one of the biggest Ukrainian ports on the Azov Sea,” the Kyiv Post relayed.
“After an unsuccessful landing attempt and an unsuccessful missile strike, the [Russian] enemy missile cruiser Moskva began shelling Zmiyinyi Island,” according to Ukrinform.
Konashenkov acknowledged on February 24 that “Russian smart weapons were being used to eliminate military infrastructures, air defense facilities, airdromes and aircraft [in Ukraine].”
“Ukrainian border guards offered no resistance to Russian forces and according to the available intelligence Ukrainian soldiers were massively vacating positions and leaving weapons,” the Russian Defense Ministry spokesman said.
Ukrainian military units that surrendered to Russian soldiers on Thursday “were not being attacked,” Konashenkov stressed.
Russian leader Vladimir Putin touched upon the issue of Ukrainian soldiers surrendering to Russian forces during a nationally televised speech to the Russian public broadcast on February 24.
“Putin urged the Ukrainian military to ‘lay down arms at once and leave for home,'” TASS relayed.
“Those servicemen of the Ukrainian army who will meet this demand will be free to leave the zone of combat operations and return to their families,” Putin said during the address.
The Ukrainian Defense Ministry has made similar claims that Russian soldiers have surrendered to their army, posting photos on social media of alleged platoon leaders in Ukrainian custody.
Russia launched a military invasion of neighboring Ukraine in the early morning hours of February 24. The development took place just 72 hours after Moscow announced on February 21 it planned to formally recognize the independence of two Russian-backed separatist states in Ukraine’s eastern Donbass region known as the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics.
Konashenkov reiterated in later statements to the media on February 24 that Moscow was allegedly “not targeting Ukrainian cities” with airstrikes. The Russian Defense Ministry spokesman seemed to indicate Moscow was making a peculiar distinction between civilian facilities and the Ukrainian “military” assets it was targeting, thereby selectively ignoring their overlap. This questionable rationalization contrasted starkly with growing reports on Thursday of Russia’s fatal shelling of population centers, such as Odesa Oblast’s Lypetske village.
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