Kalibr missile russia warship
© MOD Russia via Global Look PressFILE PHOTO. Launch of a Kalibr cruise missile by a Russian warship during a drill.
On Friday morning, Russia carried out strikes on military infrastructure sites in western Ukraine using long-range precision weapons, the Defense Ministry said in a briefing. The strikes destroyed airfields near the cities of Lutsk and Ivano-Frankivsk, the military claimed.

The attacks were confirmed by regional authorities in both cities, which are located in the southwest and northwest of Ukraine, respectively.

Over the course of 24 hours, Russian warplanes destroyed 107 military sites of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Defense Ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov said. This increased the total number of military infrastructure targets reported by Russia as destroyed during the campaign to 3,213.


Comment: This includes the US-funded bioweapons sites, many close to Ukraine's border with Russia, that held materials banned under international law: Malone on US BIO Weapon Research: Are We the Good Guys or the Bad Guys Here?


Lutsk airfield, Ukraine
© Google MapsLutsk airfield, Ukraine
Turkish-made Baykar Bayraktar TB2 attack drones were the primary target for Russian air defense forces on Thursday, according to the briefing. A total of eight such aircraft were taken down by Russian troops, in addition to three Ukrainian Mil Mi-24 helicopters, Konashenkov said.


Comment: The specific targeting of drones is notable considering the recent report of a soviet era drone, a type only used by Ukraine, crash landing in Croatia, after traveling through Hungary, apparently undetected.


The Russian forces and their allies from the breakaway Donetsk and Lugansk republics have made further advances on the ground in eastern Ukraine, the official said. The city of Volnovakha, one of the strongholds of the Ukrainian troops, has been captured by Donetsk rebels, he said.

The Russian incursion into Ukraine is now in its third week. Moscow claims the attack was necessary to eliminate threats emanating from Ukraine towards its breakaway regions and Russia itself.


Comment: Not only was Ukraine plotting to launch an invasion in the Donbass but it had begun talking about making a dirty bomb from spent nuclear materials to attack Russia with; Moscow had little choice but to neutralise the neo-Nazi aligned, Western backed, Ukrainian military.


Kiev and its foreign backers called the Russian move an unprovoked act of aggression. Western nations hit Moscow with harsh economic sanctions intended to devastate the Russian economy.


Comment: Moscow has actually accused the West of declaring all out economic war and it is responding in kind: Russia prepares to nationalize foreign companies as West wages full scale economic war & defaults on its financial obligations


Russia attacked its neighbor in late February, following a seven-year standoff over Ukraine's failure to implement the terms of the Minsk agreements, and Moscow's eventual recognition of the Donbass republics in Donetsk and Lugansk. The German- and French-brokered protocols had been designed to regularize the status of those regions within the Ukrainian state.

Russia has now demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join the US-led NATO military bloc. Kiev insists the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked and has denied claims it was planning to retake the two republics by force.