Putin rains down death on Ukraine in overnight Russian rocket attack
Russian rocket and drone attacks have killed two and wounded at least six people in Ukraine overnight.
The attacks came as Orthodox Christians in Ukraine and Russia celebrated Easter, with the Kremlin showing no respite during the holy occasion despite Vladimir Putin putting on a facade of piousness during a national address.
Ukrainian officials said that Russia fired 24 Iranian-style ‘Shahed’ drones at its territory overnight, 23 of which were shot down.
However, the one which made it through hit a building in the northeastern city of Kharkiv, injuring six people including a nine-year-old girl.
Meanwhile in the city of Pokrovsk, 35 miles from the Russian-occupied city of Donetsk, a rocket attack killed two people.
Other strikes took place in the Nikopol and Dnipro regions after they were targeted by 12 drones, causing a number of fires, although no one was killed or hurt in these attacks.
A firefighter sprays water on the smouldering wreckage caused by a Russian strike in the Nikopol regin
Damage caused by a drone attack on a building in the Dnipro region of Ukraine on Saturday
News of the attacks was released on social media by Ukrainian officials, adding to the tens of thousands have been killed and millions driven from their homes since Putin ordered the invasion of Russia’s smaller neighbour in February 2022. The war, now in its third year has no end in sight.
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‘In Pokrovsk, rocket attacks killed two people and damaged a house,’ Vadim Filashkin, Ukraine’s governor of the eastern Donetsk region, said in a post on Telegram.
‘A house and outbuildings were burned down as a result of ‘Shahed’ attacks. Six people were injured, among them a girl born in 2015,’ said Kharkiv Governor Oleg Synegubov on Telegram.
In Russia and Ukraine, leaders have used religion and the church institution to rally society behind the war effort, with the latest attacks coming during the holy Easter weekend.
Orthodox Christians, including the Orthodox Church in Ukraine and Russia, celebrate Easter this weekend, while most Western churches observed the major holiday on March 31.
In Moscow, President Vladimir Putin attended an Easter service led by the head of Russia’s Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, a staunch supporter of the Russian leader and his war in Ukraine.
Putin did not explicitly mention the war – that Russia calls a ‘special military operation’ – in his Easter message.
President Vladimir Putin appears withdrawn and downcast at the Orthodox Easter mass service, staring off absentmindedly into the distance
The Russian leader looked miserable as he went through the mass which was televised across Russia and went on throughout the night
Putin stood with Sergei Sobyanin, Mayor of Moscow (right) inside Christ the Savior Cathedral for the midnight mass where they held thin red candles as a choir sang traditional songs
In a public address to Kirill, Putin thanked him for ‘fruitful cooperation in the current difficult period, when it is so important for us to unite our efforts for the steady development and strengthening of the Fatherland.’
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Meanwhile, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky called on his fellow Ukrainians on Orthodox Easter on Sunday to unite in prayer for each other and the soldiers on the frontline, saying God will lead to life defeating death.
‘Let’s pray for each other. When we all came closer to each other, we were no longer strangers to each other,’ Zelenskiy.
Wearing a traditional Ukrainian vyshyvanka shirt, instead of his typical army-style clothes, he said: ‘We believe that God has a chevron with the Ukrainian flag on his shoulder. Therefore, with such an ally, life will definitely defeat death.’
Standing in front of the 1,000-year-old Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv, a spiritual and architectural monument of the country’s faith, Zelenskiy said that Ukraine has now been fighting for 802 days against Russia for a victory.
‘And we believe: God has a chevron with the Ukrainian flag on his shoulder. So with such an ally, life will definitely win over death.’
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky published a video message on Sunday from Kyiv’s Saint Sophia Cathedral in the centre of the capital.
An exhibition at the cathedral features religion icons painted on ammunition boxes.
Zelenskiy, who is Jewish, called for prayers first for all the soldiers who will be celebrating Easter in the trenches, so they will return home alive, and for the land and people, whose spirit ‘cannot be broken’ and who will, he added, see Ukraine free one day.
‘Ukrainians kneel only in prayer,’ Zelenskiy said. ‘And never before invaders and occupiers.’
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