Home › Security › Missiles on Kyiv as Luhansk front shifted
Missiles on Kyiv as Luhansk front shifted
Summary
On 26 June 2022, cruise missiles hit the capital and a bridge in Cherkasy Oblast while Russian forces pressed Ukrainian troops in Luhansk Oblast.
What did a weekend of long-range strikes and ground advances signal about the war's direction? On 26 June 2022, several Russian cruise missiles struck Kyiv, killing one civilian and injuring four others, according to Ukraine's Prosecutor General. Some of the missiles were launched from Tupolev Tu-95 strategic bombers over the Caspian Sea.
The same day, a missile strike in Cherkasy Oblast killed a civilian and destroyed a strategic bridge connecting western Ukraine with eastern battlefields. The target was a link between the western regions and the front, which makes the strike notable beyond the casualty count.
A wider missile campaign
The attacks followed a barrage on 25 June 2022, when Russia launched dozens of cruise missiles at targets in several Ukrainian cities, including Yavoriv, Zhytomyr and Desna. At least 20 of those missiles were fired from Belarusian airspace. Taken together, the two days showed strikes reaching the capital, the centre and the west of the country, launched from the Caspian Sea and from Belarusian airspace.
The fight for Luhansk Oblast
On the ground, the preceding days brought losses for Ukraine in Luhansk Oblast. On 24 June 2022, the region's governor, Serhiy Haidai, announced that Ukrainian forces would withdraw from Sievierodonetsk amid the advance of Russian and pro-Russian forces. On the same day, Ukrainian authorities said Russian forces had captured Hirske, south of Lysychansk, while Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov said his forces had taken the town of Zolote.
On 25 June 2022, the mayor of Sieverodonetsk announced that Russian forces had fully occupied the city. Pro-Russian forces said they had entered Lysychansk, the last major city still held by Ukrainian forces in Luhansk Oblast, and that street-to-street fighting was under way.
Occupied territory
In the south, on 24 June 2022, a Russian-appointed senior official for the Kherson youth department was killed by a car bombing in Kherson, in an apparent assassination.
The picture on 26 June 2022 was therefore of pressure on two levels: missile strikes across Ukraine, including on infrastructure serving the route to the east, and a ground campaign in which Lysychansk had become the focus in Luhansk Oblast after the battle of Sievierodonetsk, a military engagement within the wider battle of Donbas.
