Russia hit Ukraine with a nighttime barrage of 18 missiles, killing two people in Pavlohrad and a 14-year-old boy in the Chernihiv region, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on May 1.
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Forty other people were injured in Pavlohrad, Zelenskiy said in his nightly address.
"The terrorists' missiles took the lives of two people, very young men," Zelenskiy said, referring to the two deaths in the eastern city, which is a railway hub,.
Zelenskiy also said the 14-year-boy killed in the northern region of Chernihiv died close to his school when the building was hit by a bomb.
Serhiy Lysak, the head of the regional administration, had said earlier that 34 people, including five children, were injured in the attack on Pavlohrad, and seven rockets were shot down by air-defense units.
"An industrial enterprise was damaged in Pavlohrad,” he wrote on Telegram. “In a residential area, 19 high-rise buildings, 25 private houses, six educational institutions, and five shops were damaged; nearly 40 residential buildings.”
A post to the Telegram account of Ukraine’s commander in chief, General Valeriy Zaluzhniy, said missiles were launched from Russian plants at around 2.30 a.m. local time. It said 15 out of the 18 missiles launched had been destroyed.
Russia's Defense Ministry said in a statement that its forces had carried out missile strikes against Ukrainian locations, and claimed that all its missiles had hit designated military sites.
Zaluzhniy spoke by phone later on May 1 with U.S. General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and informed him about the situation across the front line, describing it as “difficult but under control.” He also stressed the need to strengthen Ukraine’s air defenses and the timely delivery of weapons.
The head of Russian-controlled Sevastopol said the Crimean city was the target of a drone attack. Mikhail Razvozhayev, the Moscow-installed administrator of the port city, said the Black Sea Fleet and Russian air-defense forces shot down one of the drones.
In recent days, there has been an uptick in aerial attacks and other explosions in Ukraine, as well as in Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine, including at a fuel depot on the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea.
Some Ukrainian authorities have hinted that the new explosions might be connected to a widely anticipated counteroffensive.
SEE ALSO: Why Ukraine's Looming Offensive May Be The Most Important Clash Of The War. Period.The site of the fiercest fighting for nearly 10 months has been the Donetsk region city of Bakhmut, where Russian forces are slowly chipping away at Ukrainian positions, and are believed to hold most of the territory in the now-devastated town, but apparently at a high cost.
The White House on May 1 said it estimates that since December Russia has suffered 100,000 casualties, including more than 20,000 killed in fighting for control of Bakhmut and other parts of eastern Ukraine.
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said nearly half those killed since December were Wagner group mercenaries, many of them convicts who were released from prison to join Russia's fight.
The new figures suggest that Russian losses have accelerated in recent months. Milley said in November that Russia had suffered well over 100,000 killed or wounded in the first eight months of the war.
Zelenskiy spoke by phone with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on May 1 to discuss long-term defense cooperation. Zelenskiy noted on Twitter the confiscation of Russian assets and called for increased sanctions-pressure on Russia.
Canada last month announced a new package of military aid to Ukraine worth 39 million Canadian dollars ($28.8 million). The aid includes funds for 3.3 million liters of fuel, sniper rifles, ammunition, spare parts for guns, and new radio equipment for Leopard 2 tanks.
The ministry added that all eight Leopard 2 battle tanks pledged by Canada have been delivered to Poland, and that Canada has sent three instructors to train Ukrainian troops on operating the tanks.