Russia hits illegally annexed Ukraine areas from ground and air

Russian forces have used ground-and-air-fired missiles, rocket launchers, and weaponised drones to bombard the provinces of Ukraine they have illegally annexed but don't fully control, causing casualties, building damage and power outages.

The Ukrainian military said Russian forces launched 18 airstrikes, five missile strikes, and 53 attacks from multiple rocket launchers between Thursday and Friday mornings.

According to the General Staff statement, Russia was concentrating the bulk of its offensive operations in Ukraine’s industrial east, focusing on the cities and towns of Lyman, Bakhmut, Avdiivka, and Marinka in Donetsk province.

Most of Friday's battlefield reports concerned the four Ukrainian provinces Russia annexed in September: Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered his military to gain complete control of the provinces, while Ukraine has indicated it will soon launch a counteroffensive to take back more territory.

Russia also annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in 2014, a move that most of the world also regarded as illegal. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has vowed to regain all Russian-occupied areas.

Looking ahead to how the war might end, Ukraine’s defense minister, Oleksii Reznikov, told Cypriot state broadcaster CyBC ahead of talks with his Cypriot counterpart on Friday that his country would negotiate peace with Russia only after its occupied territory is liberated. He said Zelenskyy has made clear he would negotiate only with Putin's successor to ensure peaceful coexistence.

Regarding armament procurement, Reznikov said Ukraine’s top priority is for antiaircraft systems, followed by artillery ammunition, infantry vehicles, tanks and electronic