Russian Attacks Kill 9 in Ukraine      08/11 06:08

   Russia bombarded Ukrainian cities with missiles, drones and glide bombs, 
killing at least nine civilians, officials said Tuesday, as Ukrainian President 
Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that Moscow is receiving new military help for its 
more than 4-year-old invasion from North Korea.

   KYIV, Ukraine (AP) -- Russia bombarded Ukrainian cities with missiles, 
drones and glide bombs, killing at least nine civilians, officials said 
Tuesday, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that Moscow is 
receiving new military help for its more than 4-year-old invasion from North 
Korea.

   Zelenskyy said Russian forces used ballistic missiles supplied by North 
Korea in their overnight attack on the southeastern Ukraine city of 
Zaporizhzhia, where local officials said six people were killed and 19 wounded.

   A further three people, including a 15-year-old boy, were killed by Russian 
drones and artillery in the central Dnipropetrovsk region, local authorities 
said.

   Russia has received additional ballistic missiles from Pyongyang and is 
preparing to deploy more North Korean troops, Zelenskyy said late Monday.

   Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed 
a strategic partnership agreement just over two years ago. It vows mutual aid 
if either country faces aggression.

   Kim has sent thousands of troops and huge supplies of weapons to support 
Putin's invasion of Ukraine. Some experts say the engagement with Moscow is 
helping improve North Korea's military capabilities, and Zelenskyy warned that 
the battlefield experience would help Pyongyang menace other countries in its 
region.

   Ukraine says Russia is scaling up its production of ballistic missiles, 
aiming to exploit Kyiv's critical shortage of Patriot air defense interceptors 
that can stop them, and claims Moscow is readying an increase in recruitment 
for a new push on the front line that stretches 1,250 kilometers (775 miles) 
along eastern and southern Ukraine.

   "Every step Russia takes -- increasing ballistic missile production, 
bringing in North Korean equipment, preparing for mobilization -- all of this 
shows that Moscow is preparing not for peace, but for escalation," Zelenskyy 
said on social media.

   U.S.-led diplomatic efforts to stop the war have fizzled as Washington grew 
frustrated with the lack of progress toward a settlement and its attention 
turned to the Iran war.

   "The Kremlin will not enter serious negotiations or make meaningful 
compromises on its demands as long as Putin believes that he has a viable 
military path to achieving his full objectives," the Institute for the Study of 
War, a Washington-based think tank, said in an analysis late Monday.

   "Ukraine's Patriot shortages offer Russia an opportunity to cause very 
serious damage to Ukraine over the coming winter and will therefore contribute 
to delaying meaningful negotiations and protracting the war," it said.

   Russia hits the grounds of a Kyiv children's hospital

   Russian forces also struck parts of the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, overnight, 
according to officials. One strike hit the grounds of a children's hospital, 
leaving two craters and shattering windows, the State Emergency Service said. 
Children and medical workers were in bomb shelters and nobody was hurt, it 
added.

   At another location in the capital, a Russian strike started a fire in a 
warehouse that spread across about 1,200 square meters (nearly 13,000 square 
feet), according to emergency officials.

   The Russian Defense Ministry said that its forces overnight struck "military 
industrial facilities and transport and logistics centers" in Kyiv and 
Zaporizhzhia with "ground-based precision weapons."

   It said in a statement Tuesday that it hit drone storage facilities in Kyiv 
and a metallurgical plant in the city of Zaporizhzhia.

   Russia targeted Zaporizhzhia and Kyiv with Zircon anti-ship missiles and 
Iskander ballistic missiles, while launching 120 long-range strike drones of 
various types across the country, Ukraine's air force said.

   Russia's biggest e-commerce company hit again

   Meanwhile, the Russian Defense Ministry said that its air defenses overnight 
intercepted almost 400 Ukrainian drones over 14 Russian regions and occupied 
Crimea.

   Russia's biggest online retailer, Wildberries, said in a statement that its 
logistical facilities in the Voronezh region on the border with Ukraine came 
under attack and caught fire, but it said the fire has been extinguished. It 
said goods stored at the facilities were "largely undamaged."

   Ukraine has repeatedly struck Wildberries warehouses and has also bombarded 
Russian oil facilities in what it says is a strategy to compel Putin to 
negotiate an end to the invasion.

   Russian independent online outlet Astra said an oil refinery in the city of 
Orsk, some 1,300 kilometers from the border with Ukraine, was hit and published 
images of smoke billowing over it. There was no official confirmation of an 
attack on the Orsk oil refinery, which has been targeted before.