Ukraine denounced “massive” strikes by more than 120 Russian missiles on Thursday morning targeting several regions, including the capital kyiv, a new salvo intended to destroy the country’s energy infrastructure in the middle of winter.
After a series of military setbacks on the ground in late summer and fall, the Kremlin changed tack and in October began regularly hitting transformers and power stations with salvoes of dozens of missiles and drones. from Ukraine.
With the key to serious energy shortages and millions of Ukrainians plunged into the cold and the dark.
These bombings occur a few days before New Year, the main family celebration in this season in most countries in the region.
“The enemy is attacking Ukraine on several fronts, with cruise missiles fired from planes and ships,” the Air Force announced on social media.
“More than 120 missiles have been launched to destroy essential civilian infrastructure and kill civilians en masse,” added the adviser to the Ukrainian presidency, Mikhaïlo Podoliak, on Twitter, without giving a toll of possible victims.
Lviv, the big city in western Ukraine, was 90% without electricity Thursday after these new bombings.
Water reserves
“90% of the city is without electricity […] Trams and trolleybuses no longer run in the city, there could be water cuts,” said Lviv Mayor Andriï Sadovy on the social network Telegram.
In kyiv, Mayor Vitali Klitschko told him of three injuries, including a 14-year-old girl, who were all hospitalized.
He also warned his constituents that the city, already very affected by power cuts, may be faced with new “power outages”.
“Charge your phones, and other devices. Stock up on water,” he wrote on Telegram.
In Odessa, a major port in southwestern Ukraine, 21 Russian missiles were shot down by Ukrainian anti-aircraft defense, according to Governor Maksym Marchenko.
But others have hit their target, so there are “emergency power cuts” in the city, he said.
In Kharkiv, in the northeast, on the border with Russia, shelling also targeted “critical infrastructure”, according to Governor Oleg Sinegoubov, adding that “the toll of destruction and casualties was being established “.
Since October, Russia has launched hundreds of missiles and drones against Ukrainian infrastructure. kyiv is therefore calling on its Western allies to increase its military aid more quickly to provide the country with more anti-aircraft defense systems.
No prospect of peace
Russian President Vladimir Putin justified this tactic of massive strikes affecting millions of civilians in early December, saying that they were a response to Ukrainian attacks against Russian infrastructure.
He also always presents his invasion of Ukraine, which has lasted for more than 10 months, at the cost of heavy losses, as a necessity for national security, assuring that the West was using Ukraine as a head bridge to threaten Russia.
Again on Wednesday, the head of Russian diplomacy, Sergei Lavrov, considered that the war had been “prepared by the West via Ukraine” against Russia.
Faced with serious military setbacks in the face of Ukrainians galvanized and armed by the West, Moscow mobilized 300,000 reservists, civilians therefore, to stabilize the fronts.
Moscow claims the annexation of four regions of southern and eastern Ukraine, which the Russian army partly occupies.
The fighting also continues to rage, with a particular bloody battle for Bakhmut, a city in the east that Russia has been trying to conquer for months, and Kreminna that Ukrainian forces are trying to retake.
Kherson, a major southern city from which Russian forces fled on November 11, is now the target of almost daily Russian strikes.
Prospects for peace talks are almost non-existent.
Ukraine is demanding the withdrawal of all Russian forces from the country, when Moscow wants kyiv to at least cede to it the four regions which the Kremlin has been claiming annexation since September, as well as Crimea annexed in 2014.