The Ukrainian military says Russia carried out another massive air attack overnight using various missiles. The mayor of Kharkiv, Ukraine's second city, said one narrowly missed a hospital with a thousand people inside. Attacks also took place in the Dnipro region in central Ukraine and Western areas of Lviviv and Ivana Frankovsk. Ukrainian officials say equipment has been damaged and at least one energy worker injured. Russia has repeatedly targeted Ukraine Ukrainian energy infrastructure over recent months. It's a tag such as these which have prompted more USAID to Ukraine. The United States has outlined what will be included in a six billion package of military assistance. Is part of a larger $60 billion commitment, which was approved by Congress a week ago, following six months of delays. The package will focus on air defense and includes interceptor missiles, anti-drunk systems, and artillery military ammunition. What's not included are the new Patriot air defense batteries, which Ukraine's President Vladimir Zelenskyy says are critical. The US Defense Secretary, Lloyd Austin, has been speaking about the importance of the aid.

The outcome in Ukraine will determine the trajectory of our times. If Putin prevails in Ukraine, the security consequences will be grave and global. Europe would face a security threat that it hasn't seen in lifetimes. As President Biden has noted, Russia will not stop in Ukraine. If Kremlin gets its way, if Putin's war of imperial aggression succeeds, every tyrant on Earth will take note.

Well, for more on these developments, we can speak to Ivan Vrstuk, a journalist based in Kyiv. Thank you for joining us. First of all, just tell us about these overnight attacks by Russia, and we're We're also hearing of Ukrainian drone attacks against Russia as well.

Greetings from Kyiv. Good morning, Catherine. Yes, several things. Well, it's pretty clear that Russians are hurrying up to increase pressure on Ukrainian energy infrastructure before new air defense systems and new supplies for our air defense get installed. Russians are using this period of time to do the rest of their plans to our energy system. It's going to be harder for Ukrainian business and the population to survive this year of war. In this way, Russians want to make Ukrainians more thinking about maybe we should sign a peace agreement or something because our energy infrastructure is so badly damaged. And with the Ukrainian drones targeting Russian oil refiners in South Western region of that country, this is also very important because those two oil refiners are directly involved in Russian military logistics and resupplying Russian troops in Eastern Ukraine with all kinds of fuel. So this is directly a military target. And what's also important is that we know well that Vladimir Putin, Russian leader, mostly doesn't pay any attention to Russian economic crisis or any Western economic sanctions. To him, this is not a priority, but the only economic indicator that he pays attention to is inflation and price growth.

. I know our time is going to run out shortly. I just wanted to ask you about this US military aid package for for Ukraine. I just wanted to ask you about the reaction there when the US announced it was not going to send these Patriot air defense batteries to Ukraine as part of this package. What's the reaction there?

Overall, despite having problems with getting more Patriot systems to Ukraine, all of our weapons are going to be resupplied with this recent US assistance package, anti-tank weapons, anti-aircraft weapons, all kinds of artillery. People generally now feel much easier Because the general expectation is that Russians will belong in another big advance in May or June. That's why they're concentrating their military personnel and also fire power, mostly in Eastern Ukraine. That change, the new supply line, it changes the mode of people who now feel substantially safer, expecting of what's going to be happening next. Also, it's really It's very important to resupply our troops, especially in Eastern Ukraine, where the intensity of fighting is the highest among all of the territories. Russian army in Eastern Ukraine, that's the place where it's still intended to do more land grabs. That's That's why that part is your report.

I wanted to ask you about these Ukrainian territories. You mentioned Russia has been gaining ground. How much of a difference do you think these new weapons will make for Ukraine's efforts to try and hold the front lines?

I think this will be a milestone that will change the trajectory of war because Russians, they had a huge advantage in firepower in Eastern Ukraine. Now, our troops, our army will be able to shoot back as many missiles, as many munitions as needed. That's important because to destroy a Russian tank, it's not enough to hit it just one time. You get hit several times in order to get it to a degree where Russians won't be able to repair it. That's why so much matters to have as many munitions as army needs. It's generally also very important to meet the request of Ukrainian troops because the daily, they keep writing the request for the supplies, and the generals aren't able to meet those requests. Our army and soldiers, they get demoralized. Now, it's going to be much better fighting.

We have to leave it there. But thank you for joining us from Kyiv.