3 Killed in Kyiv Amid Investigation Into 'Locked Shelter'

Facts

• Russia continued to launch strikes into Kyiv on Thursday — attacks that have become a near-daily reality for those living in Ukraine's capital over the past month. Ukrainian officials said 10 Iskander missiles were fired into the city, claiming that all 10 were shot down by the country's air defenses. Three civilians were killed and 16 were reported injured.¹
• A man who lost his wife in the strikes — identified only as Yaroslav — told Ukrainian media that she and two others were killed after doors to a local bomb shelter were locked and they couldn't get in. "An air-raid warning was issued, people ran to the shelter," he said. "The shelter was not opened and that's it..."²
• Public prosecutors in Kyiv said that a criminal investigation has been opened into the circumstances surrounding the bomb shelter doors in the Desnianskyi district where the deaths occurred.³
• Meanwhile, city mayor Vitali Klitschko said that it was agreed to suspend district head Dmytro Ratnikov while investigations continue, adding that the head of the medical facility where the bomb shelter was located should also be suspended — though a decision on this appears to not yet have been reached.⁴
• Elsewhere, widespread Russian artillery attacks continued to be reported across Ukraine in the past day, namely in the regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Sumy, and Dnipropetrovsk as well as in Kherson, Kharkiv, Chernihiv, and Zaporizhzhia. Two people were reported injured in Dnipropetrovsk, while two were injured in Kherson; eight civilians were reported injured in Russia's Belgorod region.¹
• On Wednesday, the US announced a new $300M arms package to Ukraine — however, it came with the caveat that the weapons should not be used to attack Russian territory. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said: "We have been very clear with the Ukrainians privately — we’ve certainly been clear publicly — that we do not support attacks inside Russia. We do not enable and we do not encourage attacks inside Russia."⁵

Sources: ¹UKRINFORM, ²Ukrainska Pravda (a), ³Ukrainska Pravda (b), ⁴Guardian (a), and ⁵Guardian (b).

Narratives

• Pro-establishment narrative, as provided by Associated Press. This latest attack, which inflicted the highest death toll from any attack on Kyiv in the past month, came as Ukraine was celebrating International Children’s Day. Instead, those events were canceled and the day came to mark another horrific day of Russian aggression.
• Pro-Russia narrative, as provided by TASS. US statements that it does not support strikes inside Russia while in the same breath approving millions of dollars of additional weapons demonstrate to Russia America's real priorities. These assurances are worthless and America continues to fan the flames of conflict.

Predictions