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Russia Uses Iranian-Made Drones to Strike Military Base Deep Inside Ukraine

October 5, 2022 Admin Leave a comment

BILA TSERKVA, Ukraine—Russia used suicide drones to strike a military base deep inside Ukraine on Wednesday, posing a growing challenge for Kyiv as its forces pressed advances in the south and east of the country.

The head of the Kyiv regional military administration said six explosions had been heard overnight in Bila Tserkva, about 50 miles south of the Ukrainian capital.

Oleksiy Kuleba

said the attack was carried out by Iranian-made Shahed-136 delta-wing drones, which Russia has begun deploying in recent weeks. Rescue workers were on scene extinguishing a fire and assessing damage, Mr. Kuleba said, adding that one person was wounded.

It was the closest drone attack to the capital since Russia began using the kamikaze-style munitions widely on the battlefield.

Smoke could be seen rising on Wednesday afternoon from the base housing Ukraine’s 72nd Brigade, which defended Kyiv against Russia’s assault in the early days of the invasion and is now fighting in the eastern city of Bakhmut. The roof of a building in the compound had caved in, its windows shattered from what appeared to be multiple strikes on the facility. Firefighters marched in and out of the compound.

Dozens of uniformed soldiers, including some who said they had recently returned from the fighting in eastern Ukraine, huddled in groups across the street from the complex. Their barracks now destroyed, they said they awaited orders for where they were heading next.

The drone attack began around 1:30 a.m. local time, according to several residents in the neighborhood around the base, with a buzzing sound that sounded like a motorcycle. Three residents said they didn’t understand the sound signaled an airstrike until they heard an explosion, which sent civilians and some soldiers from the barracks racing for their basement shelters.

The fact that drones were able to strike far inside the country is concerning for Ukrainian officials.

A building damaged by a Russian drone strike in Bila Tserkva, south of Kyiv in central Ukraine.

Photo:

GLEB GARANICH/REUTERS

At a meeting with representatives of the country’s security and intelligence apparatus convened on Wednesday, Ukrainian President

Volodymyr Zelensky

discussed how to counter “new types of weapons that the aggressor has begun to use.” They also discussed stabilization in newly recaptured territories and preparing the army for winter, he said in a post online.

The Iranian drones had previously been used mainly in the northern Kharkiv region and on the southern coast near occupied Ukrainian territory. They are relatively small and fly at a very low altitude, making it hard for Ukrainian air-defense systems to detect them.

Air-force spokesman

Yuriy Ihnat

said the drones used in Wednesday’s attack had been launched from Russian-occupied territory in the south of the country. Six other drones were shot down, he said, adding that Russia was probing Ukrainian air defenses for weak points.

“The threats are serious,” Mr. Ihnat told a Ukrainian TV broadcast.

An aide to a minister in a Moscow-backed quasi-statelet in eastern Ukraine confirmed Russia had carried out a strike on the base in Bila Tserkva using Iranian kamikaze drones.

The strikes came as Ukraine pushed back Russian forces in areas that Moscow last week said it was annexing following sham referendums aimed at legitimizing the land grab. So far, only North Korea has recognized the votes.

In his nightly address, Mr. Zelensky said dozens of towns and villages had since been retaken in regions seized by Moscow, including Kherson. “The Ukrainian army is carrying out a pretty fast and powerful advance in the south of our country as part of the current defense operation,” Mr. Zelensky said.

A stray dog in the center of Balakliya, in northeastern Ukraine.

Photo:

Serhii Korovayny for The Wall Street Journal

A torn banner that showed the Russian flag in the recently recaptured Ukrainian city of Izyum.

Photo:

Serhii Korovayny for The Wall Street Journal

Kremlin spokesman

Dmitry Peskov

said Wednesday that Moscow would retake territories it had lost since announcing their incorporation into Russia.

Russian President

Vladimir Putin

has threatened to use all means at Moscow’s disposal, including nuclear weapons, if Russian-claimed territory is attacked. Western officials played down the likelihood of Russia using nuclear weapons in retaliation for its losses on the battlefield.

After taking back the strategic town of Lyman over the weekend, Ukrainian forces are pushing further east toward the Luhansk region, most of which is occupied by Russia.

“Several settlements have already been liberated from the Russian army,”

Serhiy Haidai,

the Ukrainian governor-in-exile of the Luhansk region, said in a video on Wednesday, without specifying which ones. “The de-occupation of the Luhansk region has begun.”

The U.K.’s Ministry of Defense said Ukrainian forces were advancing toward the town of Svatove in Luhansk after consolidating substantial territory on the eastern bank of the Oskil River, which they crossed during a rapid offensive in the Kharkiv region. The gains could bring the road between Svatove and Kreminna within range of artillery fire, putting further strain on Russia’s ability to resupply its units in the east, it added.

“Politically, Russian leaders will highly likely be concerned that leading Ukrainian units are now approaching the borders of Luhansk [region], which Russia claimed to have formally annexed last Friday,” the defense ministry said.

Mr. Haidai said Russian forces were planting mines around Kreminna to slow an expected Ukrainian advance. Russia has also shut down mobile phone networks there to prevent residents who oppose Russia’s occupation from cooperating with Ukrainian forces, Mr. Haidai said.

As Ukrainian forces close in, civilians have been moved out of local hospitals to make space for wounded Russian soldiers, he added.

Russia’s Defense Ministry didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on those allegations or on reports of further Ukrainian advances.

An offensive in the southern Kherson region has also gained momentum in recent days, with Ukraine’s armed forces saying they had recaptured eight villages.

Russian forces are seeking to slow Ukrainian advances there by destroying some bridges and crossings while bringing up reserves and falling back to safer positions, according to Ukraine’s southern operational command.

A filtration point for displaced people in Shevchenkove, Ukraine.

Photo:

Manu Brabo for The Wall Street Journal

A woman evacuated from near Kupyansk, in northeastern Ukraine.

Photo:

Manu Brabo for The Wall Street Journal

—James Marson and Olya Fokaf contributed to this article.

Write to Jared Malsin at jared.malsin@wsj.com and Isabel Coles at isabel.coles@wsj.com

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Ukraine Presses U.N. Over ‘Nuclear Blackmail’ at Russian-Occupied Plant

August 18, 2022 Admin Leave a comment

ODESSA, Ukraine—Ukrainian President

Volodymyr Zelensky

met with the leaders of Turkey and the United Nations on Thursday to discuss food shipments from Ukraine and the increasingly tense situation at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, as Ukraine continued to hit Russian logistics with artillery strikes.

Following the meetings in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, Mr. Zelensky said he pressed U.N. Secretary-General

António Guterres

about the nuclear plant, which Russia has occupied since the early days of the war. Explosions around the plant in recent days have knocked one reactor off the power grid and sparked fears of a nuclear catastrophe.

“Particular attention was paid to the topic of Russia’s nuclear blackmail at the Zaporizhzhia NPP,” Mr. Zelensky wrote on social media. He said the two men also discussed allegations that Ukrainian citizens were being forcibly deported to Russia and the treatment of captured Ukrainian soldiers.

Russia has said Ukrainian forces threaten the nuclear plant’s security.

After meeting with Turkish President

Recep Tayyip Erdogan,

Mr. Zelensky said they had discussed ways to protect Ukrainian grain that is being exported, as well as other security issues. Ankara helped broker with the U.N. a deal to lift a Russian naval blockade on Ukrainian exports, which had led to food shortages throughout the Middle East and Africa.

“This is a strong message of support from such a powerful country as Turkey,” Mr. Zelensky wrote on Telegram.

The Turkish president has sought to position himself as a mediator in the war, with Turkey hosting two rounds of unsuccessful peace talks between Ukraine and Russia. Mr. Erdogan has said he hopes the U.N.-backed initiative that led to the resumption of Ukraine’s Black Sea grain exports earlier this month could be a starting point for a broader peace between Russia and Ukraine.

At a news conference following the talks, he said he had “reiterated our support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine.” He added: “I have been preserving my belief that the war would come to an end at the negotiation table.”

Ukraine has exported 622,000 tons of grain and other food products from the three ports covered by the export agreement, the Turkish defense ministry said Thursday.

During the news conference, Mr. Guterres said “there is no solution to the global food crisis without insuring full global access to Ukraine’s food products and Russian food and fertilizer.” Global wheat prices, he said, have fallen up to 8% since the accord was signed.

Turkish military officers are helping to monitor implementation of the agreement alongside their Ukrainian and Russian counterparts and U.N. officials stationed at a control center that was set up in Istanbul in July. Four more ships loaded with agricultural products sailed from Ukrainian ports on Wednesday under the deal, according to Turkish officials.

Mr. Erdogan is increasingly posing as a friend to both sides in the Ukraine conflict. Turkey has delivered weapons to Ukraine, including armed drones that have been instrumental in Ukraine’s battle against the Russian invasion. In February, Turkey also invoked its rights under an international treaty to bar additional Russian warships from the Black Sea.

The leaders of the United Nations and Turkey met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in western Ukraine on Thursday. The group discussed food shipments and rising tensions at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant. Photo: Handout/AFP/Getty Images

His visit to Ukraine comes less than two weeks after a visit to Russia where he held talks on the Ukraine war and the grain initiative with Russia’s President

Vladimir Putin.

“This will be another opportunity for Mr. Erdogan to be active in this mediation process,” said

Aydin Sezer,

a former diplomat who served in Turkey’s embassy in Moscow. “Erdogan is now the only person who is credited by the Kremlin when it comes to Ukrainian business.”

Turkish and Ukrainian officials also signed a memorandum of understanding calling for Turkey to participate in Ukraine’s postwar reconstruction. The first project being considered under the agreement is the reconstruction of a bridge connecting Kyiv with the towns of Irpin and Bucha, where Russian soldiers carried out mass killings in March, the Ukrainian presidency said.

“Turkey is our strategic ally. We are grateful to our Turkish partners for their willingness to cooperate in the recovery of the infrastructure destroyed by Russia,” said Ukraine’s Infrastructure Minister

Oleksandr Kubrakov

according to the Ukrainian president’s office.

Earlier on Thursday, the Ukrainian military’s Southern Command said that it had struck an ammunition depot in the village of Bilohirka, near the front line of fighting in the Kherson region. The rocket strike is the latest in a series of attacks that have targeted logistics in the Russian-occupied south—part of a strategy to starve Russian troops in the region of supplies and force them to withdraw from the territory they are holding west of the Dnipro River.

Unidentified civilians exhumed from a mass grave after Russia’s occupation of Bucha, near Kyiv, were reburied Wednesday.

Photo:

Evgeniy Maloletka/Associated Press

Emergency workers preparing for a potential nuclear disaster in Zaporizhzhia took part in a presentation watched by Ukrainian officials.

Photo:

Justyna Mielnikiewicz/MAPS for The Wall Street Journal

A day earlier, the Ukrainian military posted video to social media that appeared to show the aftermath of a long-range rocket strike on Nova Kakhovka, also in the Kherson region. And on Tuesday, pro-Ukrainian saboteurs destroyed an ammunition depot in Crimea, which Russia seized in 2014. Video on social media Thursday also showed large explosions overnight in Russian-occupied Amvrosiivka, in the eastern Donetsk region; Ukrainian officials didn’t immediately comment on the cause.

As Ukrainian strikes inside Russian-held territory increase, Russian forces are attempting to crack down on pro-Ukrainian insurgents. A Ukrainian army veteran was arrested in the Kherson region on suspicion of sending locations of Russian troops and bases to Ukrainian forces, Russian state-run news agencies reported on Thursday. In addition, Russia’s FSB intelligence agency on Wednesday said it had detained six Russian citizens in Crimea who belonged to a cell that spread what it called terrorist ideology with the support of Ukrainian emissaries, according to Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.

Russia has said it would give International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors access to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant—but only if they come via Russian-controlled territory and not through Kyiv, a plan that Ukraine opposes.

The Russian Defense Ministry on Thursday said Ukraine was planning a false flag provocation for Friday at the plant to frame the occupying forces. Maj. Gen.

Igor Konashenkov,

a Russian Defense Ministry spokesman, didn’t provide evidence to support the claim. The Russian-installed head of the occupied territories of Zaporizhzhia, meanwhile, said a plan was in place to evacuate residents in case of an attack on the plant. Kyiv didn’t immediately respond to the claim.

Russia’s Defense Ministry also said Thursday that Moscow would consider shutting down the plant if the situation surrounding the facility continues to deteriorate.

The Ukrainian government, international nuclear-power watchdogs and the plant’s staff have accused Russia of stealing Zaporizhzhia’s power by severing its connection to Ukraine’s remaining territory.

In Kharkiv, in northeastern Ukraine, a Russian missile hit a residential building in the Saltivka neighborhood on Wednesday night, killing seven people and injuring at least 17 more, according to the city’s mayor. More missiles launched from Russia hit the city early Thursday morning, killing two more people. Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces were targeting foreign fighters.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said Thursday it has deployed three MiG-31 combat jets armed with hypersonic Kinzhal ballistic missiles to the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, a chunk of Russia wedged between North Atlantic Treaty Organization members Lithuania and Poland, according to Russian state news agencies. Such missiles, when fired from jets, have farther reach than the ground-launched missiles already deployed in Kaliningrad.

—Nikita Nikolaienko contributed to this article.

Ukrainian fighters took part in a military drill on the country’s south coast.

Photo:

oleksandr gimanov/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Write to Ian Lovett at ian.lovett@wsj.com, Jared Malsin at jared.malsin@wsj.com and Evan Gershkovich at evan.gershkovich@wsj.com

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Russia Pushes to Seize Chemical Plant in Severodonetsk as Ukraine Detains Suspected Spies

June 21, 2022 Admin Leave a comment

KYIV, Ukraine—Russia on Tuesday intensified its major offensive to take a chemical plant that has become the last bastion for Ukrainian forces in the strategic eastern city of Severodonetsk, as Ukrainian authorities called for more military aid and detained two of its own officials on suspicion they spied for Russia.

Serhiy Haidai,

the Ukrainian governor of the Luhansk region, said all regional towns that aren’t under Russia’s control are being shelled by its forces as Moscow mounts relentless artillery barrages in an attempt to complete its capture of Donbas.

President

Volodymyr Zelensky

late on Monday again appealed to the international community to help ensure that Ukraine’s fight against Russian forces doesn’t fade from global attention, saying he would do everything possible to achieve that.

A Ukrainian soldier on the front line in Shevchenkove, a village east of Kyiv.

Photo:

Guillaume Binet / MYOP for The Wall Street Journal

The last check point before the village of Pryshyb, Ukraine. Russian forces hold another village nearby.

Photo:

Guillaume Binet / MYOP for The Wall Street Journal

The conflict has morphed into a war of attrition, with Russia deploying heavy artillery to outgun Ukrainian forces. Mr. Zelensky has been pleading with Western leaders to send Kyiv more supplies of howitzers and other heavy weapons to counter the barrage.

“This is an evil that can only be defeated on the battlefield,” he said of Russia’s invasion. “We are defending Lysychansk and Severodonetsk. Throughout this whole region, the toughest, most serious battles are taking place.”

Ukraine has been counting on Central European countries that were subjugated by Moscow during the Cold War to donate Soviet-era equipment that Ukrainians have the training and spare parts to maintain. Slovakia has sent Soviet-type helicopter gunships, grad rockets, howitzers and an S-300 air-defense system.

But most of those countries are only willing to do so if they can buy replacement systems from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s allies such as Germany, France or the U.S. Germany’s limited supply of equipment and production bottlenecks have left it unable to provide those countries with all the weaponry they need to keep giving Ukraine more.

On Tuesday, Slovakia said a plan to donate a tank battalion to Ukraine fell through after Germany was unable to supply the tanks Slovakia needed.

Under the plan, Slovakia would have given 30 T-72 Soviet-type tanks to Ukraine, enough for a tank battalion, the Slovak Defense Ministry’s spokeswoman said. For months, the Central European government had been in talks with Berlin to replace those tanks with modern German Leopard tanks. But Germany, Slovakia said, now says it can only offer Slovakia 15 Leopard main battle tanks.

“The Slovak Ministry of Defense is intensely seeking ways to aid Ukraine, however this is being done on the principle of solidarity, ensuring that our solutions are advantageous for all sides,” said Slovak Defense Ministry communications director Martina Kakaščíková.

A spokesman for the German government didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the tanks. Ukrainian Defence Minister

Oleksiy Reznikov

thanked the German government for sending the long-range howitzers, which he said would be put to full use in the battlefield. The shipment was made, a German official said, after Ukrainian troops had completed training for the systems in Germany.

In occupied regions of Ukraine, Russia is handing out passports, teaching its version of history, and sending trucks blasting the Kremlin’s propaganda. But convincing people to support the invader can be complicated. WSJ’s Thomas Grove reports. Photo: Sergei Ilnitsky/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

Ukraine’s domestic intelligence agency, the SBU, has meanwhile moved to clamp down on people it suspects of working on Russia’s behalf in occupied areas and in government structures elsewhere.

The SBU said on Tuesday that it had detained two men suspected of spying for Russia, one working as a deputy in the cabinet of ministers and the other as director of one of the departments in the country’s chamber of commerce and industry.

In a video posted to Telegram, SBU spokesman Artem Dekhtyarenko said the officials had been passing classified information to Russia, ranging from details about Ukraine’s defense capabilities to the personal data of Ukrainian law-enforcement personnel. He said Russian handlers paid sums of up to $15,000 for an assignment to the two men. Russia didn’t immediately comment on the allegations.

The two officials, whose names weren’t given in the video, were shown saying they had been recruited by Russia’s Federal Security Service. It couldn’t be determined if they were speaking under duress or if they had legal representation.

Also on Tuesday, Ukrainian Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova met with U.S. Attorney General

Merrick Garland

in Ukraine to discuss U.S. and international efforts to help Ukraine identify, apprehend and prosecute individuals involved in war crimes and other atrocities. Ukrainian prosecutors have said they are investigating more than 10,700 potential war crimes involving more than 600 suspects.

Meanwhile, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reiterated to reporters on Tuesday that he couldn’t guarantee that two American military veterans feared captured in Ukraine wouldn’t face the death penalty. Alexander Drueke, 39, and Andy Tai Ngoc Huynh, 27, both from Alabama, volunteered to serve alongside Ukrainian forces.

“We can’t rule anything out, because this is a decision for the court,” Mr. Peskov said.

A refugee center in Odessa, Ukraine, which is supporting hundreds of people fleeing the war.

Photo:

Serhii Korovayny for The Wall Street Journal

Ukrainian student sailors near the opera house in Odessa, Ukraine.

Photo:

Serhii Korovayny for The Wall Street Journal

John Kirby, a national security spokesman for the White House, said Tuesday that the government was still trying to learn more about the two men and criticized the Russian threat.

“It’s appalling that a public official in Russia would even suggest the death penalty for the two American citizens,” Mr. Kirby said. “We’ve got more homework here to do. But I do think it’s important for us to make it clear: Truly appalling for even the suggestion” that the men could be put to death.

Authorities in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, which broke away from Ukraine with Russian arms and financing in 2014, recently sentenced to death three foreigners—two from the U.K. and one from Morocco—after they were captured fighting alongside Ukrainian forces against Russian-backed troops near Mariupol.

Russia has accused Ukraine of attacking strategic objects on territory under its control.

Sergei Aksyonov,

the Russian-appointed head of the Crimean Peninsula that was annexed by Russia from Ukraine in 2014, wrote on Telegram on Monday that Ukrainian forces had struck drilling platforms owned by gas company Chernomorneftegaz, injuring three people.

The apparent Ukrainian attack on the gas rigs has prompted a search-and-rescue operation in Crimea and is expected to cost Russian authorities billions of dollars in damage and lost revenue. Just hours after Mr. Aksyonov reported the attack, Russia launched a series of rockets toward Odessa in Ukraine’s south, scrambling the city’s air defenses and causing some residents to flee to bomb shelters in fear of the largest assault on the city in recent weeks.

Russian President

Vladimir Putin

on Tuesday told military-school graduates that Russian forces had started receiving S-500 air and missile defense systems. The Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile will be ready for combat at the end of the year, said Mr. Putin. He oversaw the first test-launch of the RS-28 Sarmat system in April.

Russia would “continue to develop and strengthen our armed forces, taking into account potential military threats and risks based on the lessons of contemporary armed conflicts,” Mr. Putin said.

Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov on Monday raised $103.5 million for Ukrainian child refugees after auctioning off the Nobel Peace Prize he won last year. “I was hoping that there was going to be an enormous amount of solidarity,” Mr. Muratov said after the sale, which shattered the record haul for a Nobel medal. “But I was not expecting this to be such a huge amount.”

Mr. Muratov is a co-founder and editor in chief of the now-closed independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, an outlet that had for years published investigations on state corruption and the role of Russia’s military on the world stage.

Meanwhile, the continued blockage of Ukraine’s sea ports is intensifying an export crisis that has left millions of metric tons of grain stranded in the country and unable to reach countries that desperately need it. Kyiv has sought to move out the grain by land, but the amount that can be transported by rail and truck pales in comparison with that shipped each year through southern ports.

Also in his address late Monday, Mr. Zelensky said capacity at the Krakovets-Korczowa checkpoint on the border with Poland had been increased by 50%, a move he expects to facilitate the flow of some grain out of the country.

“Modernization awaits other checkpoints on the borders with the European Union,” Mr. Zelensky said.

A Ukrainian soldier in a roadside bunker near the village of Bashtanka.

Photo:

Guillaume Binet/MYOP for The Wall Street Journal

—Bojan Pancevski contributed to this article.

Write to Matthew Luxmoore at Matthew.Luxmoore@wsj.com, Drew Hinshaw at drew.hinshaw@wsj.com and Mauro Orru at mauro.orru@wsj.com

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Uvalde Shooter Fired Outside School for 12 Minutes Before Entering

May 26, 2022 Admin Leave a comment

UVALDE, Texas—Local residents voiced anger Thursday about the time it took to end the mass shooting at an elementary school here, as police laid out a fresh timeline that showed the gunman entered the building unobstructed after lingering outside for 12 minutes firing shots.

Victor Escalon, a regional director for the Texas Department of Public Safety, said in a briefing that the now-deceased gunman, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, lingered outside Robb Elementary School for 12 minutes firing shots before walking into the school and barricading himself in a classroom where he killed 19 children and two teachers.

Mr. Escalon said he couldn’t say why no one stopped Ramos from entering the school during that time Tuesday. Most of the shots Ramos fired came during the first several minutes after he entered the school, Mr. Escalon said.

People who arrived at the school while Ramos locked himself in a classroom, or saw videos of police waiting outside, were furious.

“The police were doing nothing,” said Angeli Rose Gomez, who after learning about the shooting drove 40 miles to Robb Elementary, where her children are in second and third grade. “They were just standing outside the fence. They weren’t going in there or running anywhere.”

Mr. Escalon said officers inside the school were evacuating students and school employees from the premises, as well as calling for backup. “There’s a lot going on,” he said.

Department of Public Safety officials previously said an armed school officer confronted Ramos as he arrived at the school. Mr. Escalon said Thursday that information was incorrect and no one encountered Ramos as he arrived at the school. “There was not an officer readily available and armed,” Mr. Escalon said.

Ramos shot his grandmother Tuesday morning and drove her truck to Robb Elementary School, crashing the vehicle into a nearby ditch at 11:28 a.m., according to the timeline laid out by Mr. Escalon. He then began shooting at people at a funeral home across the street, prompting a 911 call reporting a gunman at the school at 11:30. Ramos climbed a chain-link fence about 8 feet high onto school grounds and began firing before walking inside, unimpeded, at 11:40. The first police arrived on the scene at 11:44 and exchanged gunfire with Ramos, who locked himself in a fourth-grade classroom. There, he killed the students and teachers.

A Border Patrol tactical team went into the school an hour later, around 12:40 p.m., and was able to get into the classroom and kill Ramos, Mr. Escalon said.

Ms. Gomez, a farm supervisor, said that she was one of numerous parents waiting outside the school who began encouraging—first politely, and then with more urgency—police and other law enforcement to enter the school sooner. After a few minutes, she said, U.S. Marshals put her in handcuffs, telling her she was being arrested for intervening in an active investigation.

Photos: Deadly Mass Shooting at Texas Elementary School

An 18-year-old man opened fire inside an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, killing 19 students and two adults

A family visited a makeshift memorial on May 26 in Uvalde, Texas.

Tamir Kalifa for The Wall Street Journal

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A family visited a makeshift memorial on May 26 in Uvalde, Texas.

Tamir Kalifa for The Wall Street Journal

Ms. Gomez said she convinced local Uvalde police officers whom she knew to persuade the marshals to set her free.

A spokesman for the U.S. Marshals Service said deputy marshals never placed anyone in handcuffs while securing Robb Elementary’s perimeter. “Our deputy marshals maintained order and peace in the midst of the grief-stricken community that was gathering around the school,” he said.

Ms. Gomez described the scene as frantic. She said she saw a father tackled and thrown to the ground by police and a third pepper-sprayed. Once freed from her cuffs, Ms. Gomez made her distance from the crowd, jumped the school fence, and ran inside to grab her two children. She sprinted out of the school with them.

Videos circulated on social media Wednesday and Thursday of frantic family members trying to get access to Robb Elementary as the attack was unfolding, some of them yelling at police who blocked them from entering.

“Shoot him or something!” a woman’s voice can be heard yelling on a video, before a man is heard saying about the officers, “They’re all just [expletive] parked outside, dude. They need to go in there.”

The videos were collected by Storyful, a social-media research company owned by

News Corp,

parent company of The Wall Street Journal.

Bob Estrada lives directly across the street from the school, which his grandson attends. The 77-year-old said he and his wife walked outside when they heard gunshots and were confused why the police who arrived didn’t immediately enter.

“They are trying to cover something up,” he said of the information released Thursday. “I think the cops were waiting for backup because they didn’t want to go into the school.”

Esmeralda Bravo cried while holding a photo of her granddaughter, Nevaeh, one of the Robb Elementary School shooting victims.

Photo:

Jae C. Hong/Associated Press

The Uvalde Police Department couldn’t be reached for comment.

Asked at the press conference why law enforcement weren’t able to respond in the initial 12 minutes Ramos was outside the school, Mr. Escalon said that was part of the investigation. “Our job is to report the facts and have answers. We’re not there yet,” he said.

Mr. Escalon also said police aren’t sure how Ramos was able to enter the school building. “We will find out more about why it was unlocked—or maybe it was locked—but right now it appears that it was unlocked,” he said.

Jay Martin, who lives four blocks from Robb Elementary and walked there after hearing gunfire, said the police’s timeline doesn’t match what he saw in person and online.

“Nothing is adding up,” he said. “People are just really frustrated because no one is coming out and telling us the real truth of what went down.”

More than 1,000 people gathered at an arena in Uvalde, Texas to remember the 21 victims, most of them children, who were killed by a gunman at Robb Elementary School. It was the deadliest school shooting in a decade. Photo: Jae C. Hong/Associated Press

But Danny Ruiz, whose great-niece died in the attack, said he arrived at the school after hearing gunfire and felt grateful for the police response.

“The Border Patrol agent who took him out, to me, that guy is a hero,” said Mr. Ruiz, 51.

After the confrontation at the school ended with Ramos dead, school buses began to arrive to transport students from the school, according to Ms. Gomez. She said she saw police use a Taser on a local father who approached the bus to collect his child.

“They didn’t do that to the shooter, but they did that to us. That’s how it felt,” Ms. Gomez said.

Thursday’s expressions of frustration came after more than 1,000 people from this grieving city gathered Wednesday night for a prayer vigil.

“God is here with us tonight,” Pastor Tony Gruben, of Baptist Temple Church, told the people gathered at the Uvalde County Fairplex. “God still loves you and God still loves those little children.”

Local residents packed the stands, spilled into the aisles and stood on the dirt rodeo floor where the ministers preached from a stage under flags of Texas and the U.S. White cowboy hats dotted the audience along with scores of maroon T-shirts that said “Uvalde Coyotes,” the high school mascot.

President Biden and first lady Jill Biden will travel to Uvalde on Sunday to grieve with the community, the White House said.

—Alicia A. Caldwell and Sadie Gurman contributed to this article.

Write to Elizabeth Findell at Elizabeth.Findell@wsj.com, Rob Copeland at rob.copeland@wsj.com and Douglas Belkin at doug.belkin@wsj.com

The Texas School Shooting

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Russia Targets Ukrainian Civilian Areas in Tactical Shift and Strikes Kyiv TV Tower

March 1, 2022 Admin Leave a comment

KYIV, Ukraine—Russian forces bombarded the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv and hit the capital’s TV tower as Moscow, frustrated in its plans for a quick victory, shifted to a new strategy of pummeling civilian areas in an attempt to demoralize Ukrainian resistance and reignite its slowing military advance.

On Tuesday afternoon, Russia’s Defense Ministry said it would strike Ukrainian intelligence and communications facilities in central Kyiv that it said are being used for “information attacks” against Russia, and urged residents living nearby to leave for their own safety. Western diplomats took the warning as a signal that a massive strike on Kyiv’s residential areas was imminent. Some of the remaining staff at foreign embassies left Ukraine’s capital.

Live-cam footage from Kharkiv’s central Freedom Square showed a missile landing just outside the local government’s headquarters at 8:01 a.m. local time, with a fireball charring nearby buildings and cars. Ukraine’s national emergency service said seven people were killed and 24 injured in the strike.

Later in the day, additional Russian airstrikes hit Kharkiv’s residential neighborhoods, killing more than 10 civilians, local authorities said.

“A missile targeting the central square of a city is open, undisguised terrorism,” said Ukrainian President

Volodymyr Zelensky,

adding that numerous children had died in other attacks. “It’s terrorism that aims to break us, to break our resistance.”

The Tuesday afternoon strike on Kyiv’s iconic TV tower, erected in 1973, killed five people who were nearby and injured another five, Ukraine’s state emergency service said. It also temporarily disabled the broadcasting ability of Ukraine’s central TV channels, Ukraine’s communications authority said. The authority said it would switch on reserve broadcast facilities. The TV tower stands in the Babyn Yar area, where much of Kyiv’s Jewish population was massacred by the Nazis during World War II.

Russian President

Vladimir Putin

has said that his goal is to “de-Nazify” Ukraine, alleging without any evidence that Mr. Zelensky, who is of Jewish background, is beholden to American-guided neo-Nazis.

“Putin seeking to distort and manipulate the Holocaust to justify an illegal invasion of a sovereign democratic country is utterly abhorrent. It is symbolic that he starts attacking Kyiv by bombing the site of the Babyn Yar, the biggest of Nazi massacres,” Nathan Sharansky, the chairman of the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center and a former Israeli deputy prime minister who was born in Donetsk, Ukraine, said in a statement.

The strike came amid signs that Russia’s military forces were pausing their advance on Kyiv, having encountered a range of obstacles since entering Ukraine. A senior U.S. defense official said the Russian advance has stalled amid food and fuel shortages, Ukrainian resistance, and slower-than-expected troop movement toward Kyiv. The Russians “are regrouping and trying to adjust to the challenges they have had,” the U.S. official said.

In an emotional video address to the European Parliament on Tuesday, Mr. Zelensky said Ukrainians were dying in a struggle for the country’s survival. “We are giving our lives for the right to be equal,” he said, unshaven and wearing a green army T-shirt. “Prove that you are with us and will not let us go.”

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—launched six days ago by Mr. Putin with the aim of overthrowing the country’s elected government and ending its alignment with the West—has made slower progress than most military analysts had expected. Russian forces are struggling with fierce Ukrainian resistance and logistical problems.

Ukraine’s second largest city of Kharkiv came under heavy shelling; a nearly 40-mile-long Russian convoy inched closer to Kyiv; President Zelensky addressed the European Parliament. Photo: Sergey Bobok/AFP/Getty Images

Russian troops appear to be “risk averse,” the U.S. official said, adding that there is evidence that some Russian forces have surrendered and that troop morale is weak. The U.S. official said no evidence has emerged that Russia is considering retreating from its aim of capturing Kyiv.

And Russia has managed to gain a swath of land in southern Ukraine, including capturing Kherson city, in addition to its push in the northeast and northwest.

Mr. Putin, who claims that Russians and Ukrainians are the same people, initially abstained from the kind of indiscriminate shelling of civilian areas that Russia used to subjugate its rebellious province of Chechnya in 1999-2000. The new barrages indicate that this relative restraint is falling away as Moscow seeks to crush Ukrainian resistance.

Heavy fighting continued throughout Ukraine on Tuesday, with Russian forces advancing in the country’s south and trying to push into Kyiv.

A large column of Russian forces kept heading toward Kyiv from the northwest, U.S. officials said. Satellite imagery from

Maxar Technologies

showed a long convoy of vehicles snaking toward Russia’s forward positions. However, the front line in the battle for Kyiv remained stationary near the town of Bucha on Tuesday.

A first round of cease-fire talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegations meeting in Belarus on Monday produced no immediate results, and the two sides initially agreed to meet again in coming days on the Ukrainian-Polish border.

Russia is facing growing international isolation and its financial system is reeling under the impact of Western sanctions imposed over the weekend. The ruble nosedived and Russia’s central bank more than doubled its key interest rate to 20% on Monday in an attempt to prevent a run on Russian banks as sanctions curb their access to international markets. The U.S. and the European Union said over the weekend they would hinder Russia’s central bank from using its foreign reserves and exclude a number of Russian banks from the international Swift payments network, among other measures. The EU also closed its airspace to all Russian planes.

Russia on Tuesday stepped up shelling of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, pounding civilian targets there.

Photo:

Pavel Dorogoy/Associated Press

Russia struck Kyiv’s TV tower on Tuesday, killing five people who were nearby, Ukraine’s state emergency service said.

Photo:

CARLOS BARRIA/REUTERS

Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, whose population is mostly Russian-speaking, has put up stiff resistance to Russian advances since Mr. Putin began the invasion on Thursday, citing alleged discrimination against Ukraine’s Russian-speakers as one of his reasons. Ukrainian forces repelled a tank column heading to Kharkiv last week and then killed or captured a unit of Russian troops that entered the city over the weekend.

On Monday, Russian forces unleashed a barrage of rocket fire against residential neighborhoods in Kharkiv, killing at least 10 civilians, including three children and their parents who were incinerated in a car struck by a Russian projectile, and injuring at least 40, according to Kharkiv officials.

Some 87 Kharkiv apartment buildings have been damaged, and several parts of Kharkiv no longer have water, electricity or heating, Mayor Ihor Terekhov told Ukrainian TV channels. Kharkiv, which served as the capital of Ukraine in the 1920s and 1930s, is home to some 1.4 million people.