Ukraine has carried out further strikes on Russian forces on Monday, apparently targeting Russian command and control centres deep behind enemy lines ahead of its long-awaited counteroffensive, with explosions reported in the occupied city of Luhansk.
Smoke was seen rising above a former aviation school in the eastern city, used by the Russian military. Moscow-installed local officials said Kyiv carried out the attack with two Storm Shadow long-range missiles, supplied by the British. An administrative building was damaged, they said.
The strike follows a similar attack on Saturday in Luhansk that destroyed a multi-storey building and lightly wounded a Russian MP. Russian state media showed off fragments that it said came from Storm Shadow rockets.
There was a further explosion on Monday in the city centre. The blast took place in a crowded barber’s shop. The Luhansk “people’s republic” interior minister, Major Gen Igor Kornet, was seriously wounded, apparently while getting his hair cut. One person was killed and five others injured.
Luhansk – effectively controlled by Russia since 2014 – had been relatively peaceful since Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion last year. The provision of Storm Shadow missiles, which have a range in excess of 250km, means it is suddenly vulnerable, together with Russian bases and arms depots stationed well away from the fighting.
On Monday, the Kremlin said for the first time it had shot down one of the air-launched British cruise missiles, together with other western-supplied rockets. There was no independent verification of the claim. Storm Shadow missiles are hard to detect using radar and carry a powerful 500kg warhead.
In recent days, Ukrainian commanders have been carrying out tactical “shaping” operations across a 900-mile frontline, which runs from Kherson province in the south to the Luhansk and Donetsk regions in the east. They have been systematically destroying enemy artillery systems and armoured vehicles, often in nighttime missions using drones.
The latest attacks on Luhansk suggest Kyiv is simultaneously targeting Russian command and control centres, before a general counteroffensive expected this summer. The apparent plan is to degrade Russia’s battlefield potential, in the run-up to an advance by newly formed Ukrainian battalions equipped with western main battle tanks.
Ukraine’s long-range strike capability is a growing problem for Moscow’s military command. Vladimir Putin’s press spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia took an “extremely negative” view of the UK’s decision to give Kyiv more military hardware, including long-range attack drones announced during Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s visit to the UK on Monday, when he met Rishi Sunak at Chequers.
Russia’s general staff experienced a similar strategic setback last summer when the US gave truck-mounted multiple rocket launchers to Kyiv, with an 80km range. These precision Himars systems were used to blow up bridges over the Dnipro River in southern Ukraine, forcing Moscow to abandon the city of Kherson, and to retreat from the right to the left bank.
Writing on Telegram, Igor Girkin – a far-right nationalist and former Russian intelligence colonel – said the recent delivery of Storm Shadows “can seriously affect the situation at the front”. “They can effectively hit headquarters, ammunition depots and personal quarters in our deep rear,” he acknowledged, saying “electronic warfare” did not work against them.
Last week, Ukrainian troops recaptured more than 10 sq miles of territory around the eastern city of Bakhmut, in the first significant advance for months. There were reports of continued street fighting in the city centre on Monday, with Russian infantry units and mercenaries from the Wagner group attempting to storm Ukrainian positions. Ukraine controls a small sliver of territory in the west of Bakhmut.
The commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, said the defence of Bakhmut continued. Recent local advances on both flanks of the city showed that Ukraine could move forward and counter Russian forces there, he said on Monday.
