The West Plans To Increase Air Defense Assistance, Russia Rains 40 Ukrainian Cities With Missiles

The impact of Russia's bombing of Mykolaiv. (Wikimedia Commons/State Emergency Service of Ukraine)

JAKARTA - Russian missiles hit more than 40 major and small cities in Ukraine, officials said on Thursday, during a meeting of allies of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Brussels, Belgium, unveiled plans to increase European air defenses, after providing more military assistance to Kyiv.

In the past 24 hours, Russian missiles hit more than 40 settlements, while the Ukrainian air force carried out 32 attacks on 25 Russian targets, the Ukrainian Armed Forces General Staff said.

The southern port city of Mykolaiv was under massive bombings, local officials said.

"It is known that a number of civilian objects were affected," regional governor Vitaly Kim said in a social media post.

Russia is also targeting settlements within the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, where three drone strikes hit critical infrastructure on Thursday morning, the regional government said on Telegram.

Regional Governor Kyiv Oleksify Kuleba said the initial information the attack was caused by Iranian-made 'wandering' ammunition, often known as the 'dwalk kamikaze drone'.

Separately, the missiles hit about 30 buildings and multi-storey houses, gas pipelines and power lines in the city of Nikopol in the Dniprop Embesk region, causing more than 2,000 families without electricity, regional governor Dniprop Dudisk Governor Valentyn Reznikchenko wrote on Telegram.

NATO's new promises prompted Moscow to update warnings that Western countries' aid made them "direct parties to the conflict" and recognized Ukraine to NATO's Western military alliance could trigger a Third World War.

"Kyiv is well aware that such a move would mean an escalation guarantee to a Third World War," deputy secretary of Russia's Security Council Alexander Venediktov told state news agency TASS.

Moscow has repeatedly confirmed the February 24 invasion that has killed tens of thousands of people, in what it calls a special military operation, saying Ukraine's ambition to join the alliance is a threat to Russia's security.

Meanwhile, NATO is unlikely to quickly allow Ukraine to join, as its membership during the ongoing war could put the United States and its allies into direct conflict with Russia.