Russia bombs more cities, after reiterating its plans to control new territories

With its sights set on controlling more cities, Russia intensifies its war in Ukraine.

The Kremlin troops directed their greatest fury this Thursday, July 21, against the cities of Kharkiv, Kramatorsk and Kostiantynivka, in the east of the country, and Mikolaiv, in the south.

Some of the most harrowing scenes were recorded in Kharkiv, the country’s second largest city, where, according to local police, several cluster bombs fell on the Barabashovo market, a bus stop, a gym and a residential building.

In the market, the desperate screams of Sabina Pogorelets shocked witnesses as she begged the police to let her hug her husband, Adam, whose body lay partially covered with a cloth next to a small stall.

“Please! I need to hold your hand!” Pogorelets yelled, as troopers gently pushed her away so medical workers could remove her body.

Nearby, a man hugged his young daughter as he and other visitors continued in shock. There, at least three people died and 23 were injured, according to the emergency teams that treated the victims.

“People started to work little by little, they went out to sell things and residents came here to buy (…) And exactly this place was hit by cluster bombs to maximize the damage to people,” said Volodymyr Tymoshko, head of the National Police in the Kharkiv region, after describing that the population was trying to rebuild their daily lives, but once again the area was shaken by bombing from Moscow.

So far, claims about the use of such bombs in this attack have not been independently confirmed. Those devices, which release hundreds of smaller bombs before impact, are prohibited by the Convention on Cluster Munitions, signed in 2010 by more than 100 countries. However, neither Moscow nor kyiv are part of the treaty.

“The Russian Army is randomly bombing Kharkiv, in peaceful residential areas civilians are being killed,” said the city’s mayor, Ihor Terekhov.

But Kharkiv was not the only town shaken in recent hours by Russian bombs, they also suffered attacks Mikolaiv, in the south of the country, the eastern cities of Kramatorsk and Kostiantynivka, where two schools were destroyed, and in Melitopol, in Zaporizhia oblast, according to Ukrainian officials.

The Russian Defense Ministry also claimed that its forces shot down a Ukrainian SU-25 military plane near Kramatorsk. However, that information has not been confirmed by kyiv.

In the last 24 hours, the bombing of Moscow adds up to at least five deaths and around 40 wounded, according to the office of the Ukrainian Presidency.

Russia expands its war strategy in Ukraine

The scattered attacks illustrate war targets wider and beyond the Donbass region, the Kremlin’s previously stated focus, in particular in the breakaway provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk, partly controlled by pro-Russian rebels since 2014.

However, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had ratified plans to go after more territories during an interview on Wednesday, July 20, with state television. Among the regions the Russians hope to control, the foreign minister named Kherson in the southwest and Zaporizhia in the southeast.

With Western powers providing the Ukrainian military with more powerful weapons, Lavrov argued that Russia’s “geographical tasks will move even further from the current line because we cannot allow the part of Ukraine that is under the control of Zelensky (Ukrainian President ) or whoever comes to succeed him, has weapons that represent a direct threat to our territory and the territories of those republics that have declared their independence.

Analysts at the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War say they believe the ongoing Russian aggression in Donetsk may result in the capture of the cities of Sloviansk or Bakhmut.

However, the experts also highlighted that “Russian troops are now struggling to move through open and sparsely populated terrain. They will find themselves with much more conducive terrain for the Ukrainian defenders.”

CIA: At least 15,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in Ukraine

The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) estimates that Russian casualties in Ukraine so far have reached around 15,000 dead and probably 45,000 wounded. This was stated by its director, William Burns.

“The latest estimates from the US intelligence community would be close to 15,000 (Russian military) dead and perhaps three times as many wounded. So, it’s a pretty significant sum of losses,” Burns stressed during a speech at the Security Forum in Aspen, Colorado.

The official also highlighted the loss of life among the Ukrainian ranks, although he assured that “probably a little less” than that suffered by Moscow.

The Kremlin classifies military deaths as state secrets, even in peacetime, and has not frequently updated its official death figures during the conflict it launched against its neighboring country on February 24.

As of March 25, he noted that 1,351 Russian soldiers had been killed. kyiv has also said it will not release the number of Ukrainian casualties, however, the country’s authorities said last June that between 100 and 200 of its soldiers were dying every day.

With Reuters, AP and local media