INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Russian strikes pounded a military factory near Kyiv that makes the missiles Ukraine claims it used to sink the Moskva naval flagship, with
Moscow on Friday vowing renewed attacks on the capital.A workshop and an administrative building at the Vizar plant, which lies near Kyiv's
used Kalibr sea-based long-range missiles to hit the factory, which Ukraine's state weapons manufacturer Ukroboronprom says produced Neptune
missiles."There were five hits
My employee was in the office and got thrown off his feet by the blast," Andrei Sizov, a 47-year-old owner of a nearby wood workshop, told
AFP."They are making us pay for destroying the Moskva," he said
It was the first major Russian strike around the Ukrainian capital in over two weeks.The Kyiv regional governor said there were at least two
other Russian strikes on Friday, without providing details on damage or casualties.Oleksandr Pavliuk said civilians thinking about returning
to the capital should "wait for quieter times."The governor of Ukraine's southern Odessa region, Maxim Marchenko, said the 186-meter-long
seven-week conflict, and the circumstances around its sinking and the fate of its crew of over 500 remain murky.Russia's Defense Ministry
said a blast on the vessel was the result of exploding ammunition and that the resulting damage had caused it to "lose its balance" as it
was being towed to port on Thursday.Natalia Gumeniuk, a spokeswoman for Ukraine's southern military forces, said that Russia would seek
revenge for the sinking and that bad weather had meant the Moskva's crew could not be evacuated."We saw that other ships tried to assist it,
but even the forces of nature were on Ukraine's side because the storm made both the rescue operation and crew evacuations impossible,"
officials say they are in full control although Ukrainian fighters are still holed up in the city's fortress-like steelworks.Moscow, which
invaded Ukraine partly because of deepening ties between Kyiv and NATO, on Friday warned of unspecified "consequences" should Finland and
Sweden join the U.S.-led defense alliance.The two countries are considering joining NATO after Russia's devastating invasion of neighboring
Ukraine."They will automatically find themselves on the NATO frontline," Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.Shortly
afterwards, Finland's European Affairs Minister Tytti Tuppurainen said it was "highly likely" that her country would apply for NATO
membership."The people of Finland, they seem to have already made up their mind and there is a huge majority for the NATO membership," she
told Britain's Sky News.Unlike Sweden, Finland neighbors Russia, from which it declared independence in 1917 after 150 years of Russian
rule.Russia on Friday said it was expelling 18 members of the European Union mission after the bloc kicked out some of Moscow's
representatives for spying.The EU condemned the "unjustified" move, saying in a statement that "Russia's chosen course of action will
further deepen its international isolation."Russian forces last month started withdrawing from around the Ukrainian capital as they were
redeployed to focus on territory in the east of the country, but the city remains vulnerable to missile strikes.Evacuations"The number and
scale of missile strikes against targets in Kyiv will increase in response to any terrorist attacks or sabotage committed by the Kyiv
plant 'Vizar,' the workshops for the production and repair of long-range and medium-range anti-aircraft missile systems, as well as
Donetsk and Lugansk areas, would allow Moscow to create a southern corridor to the occupied Crimean peninsula.Ukraine said that Russian
strikes had killed five people in the area, after President Volodymyr Zelensky said Moscow's forces were aiming to "destroy" the region.A
Russian attack on buses ferrying civilians from the war-torn east killed seven people and wounded more than two dozen, Ukraine said on
Friday.Ukrainian authorities have been urging people in the south and the Donbas area in the east to quickly move west in advance of a
large-scale Russian offensive.Mariupol is in ruins 50 days into Russia's so-called "special military operation" in Ukraine.Thousands of
civilians are believed to have died in the strategic city, many of their bodies still trapped in apartment buildings.'Starved to
death'Mariupol's residents have started coming outside in search of food, water and an escape route.The UN's World Food Program appealed for
suffering from the devastation of war
It's another thing when they're being starved to death," WFP Executive Director David Beasley said in a statement.In Geneva, the UN refugee
agency said that more than 5 million people have now fled Ukraine since the Russian invasion, in Europe's worst refugee crisis since World
War II.Moscow on Thursday accused Ukraine of sending helicopters to bomb a village in Russia's Bryansk region -- not far from the border
"anti-Ukrainian hysteria" in the country.Separately, the Russian Defense Ministry said Friday its strategic rocket forces "eliminated up to
Russian strikes killed at least seven, including a child, the region's governor said Friday, as Moscow's forces stepped up attacks.
