Russian missile strikes on Saturday were launched from Tu-22 bombers deployed from Belarus

Some of the dozens of long-range Russian missile strikes on Saturday were, for the first time, launched from Tu-22 bombers deployed from Belarus, Ukraine’s military says.

Russia struck multiple targets across Ukraine on Saturday, including the port city of Mykolaiv in the south, the Chernihiv region in the north and a “military object” near Lviv in the west. About 30 Russian missiles were also fired on the Zhytomyr region in central Ukraine, killing one Ukrainian soldier, Qazet.az reports.

Ukraine’s military intelligence agency said the Russian bombers’ use of Belarusian airspace for the first time was “directly connected to attempts by the Kremlin to drag Belarus into the war”.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address on Saturday that as a war that Moscow expected to last five days moved into its fifth month, Russia “felt compelled to stage such a missile show”.