The attacks on rail infrastructure were meant to disrupt the delivery of Western weapons, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. The mayor said the strikes damaged three power substations, knocking out electricity in parts of the city and disrupting the water supply. While the Russian attacks were across a wide swath of Ukraine, some were concentrated in and around Lviv, the western city close to the Polish border that has been a gateway for NATO-supplied weapons.Įxplosions were heard late Tuesday in the city, which has seen only sporadic attacks during the war and has become a haven for civilians fleeing the fighting elsewhere. The Defense Ministry in Minsk said the exercises that began Wednesday don’t threaten any neighbors but a top Ukrainian official the country will be ready to act if Belarus joins the fighting. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Wednesday dismissed the speculation as “untrue” and “nonsense.”Īs areas across Ukraine came under renewed attack, Belarus, which Russia used as a staging ground for its invasion, announced military drills. This year the world is watching for whether Russian President Vladimir Putin will use the occasion to declare a limited victory - or expand what he calls a “special military operation” to a wider war.Ī declaration of all-out war would allow Putin to introduce martial law and mobilize reservists to replace what Western officials say have been significant troop losses. The flurry of attacks over the past day comes as Russia prepares to celebrate Victory Day on May 9, marking the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany. Ukrainian authorities, meanwhile, said attacks in the eastern Donbas region left 21 civilians dead. Another official denied they were storming the plant, as its defenders said a day earlier. The defense minister repeated that Russian forces have blocked off a steel mill in Mariupol from which scores of civilians were evacuated over the weekend.