Ukraine denounced “massive” strikes by dozens of 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.
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Even if the Ukrainian army was pleased to have shot down 54 of the 69 Russian missiles launched against Ukraine on Thursday, according to the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, Valery Zalouzhny, Ukraine finds itself confronted with new damage on its electricity network, already badly damaged by almost three months of bombardments of this type.
The Air Force later reported that 11 Iranian-made Shahed explosive drones were destroyed.
Initially, the Ukrainian presidency spoke of 120 attacks.
“The enemy is attacking Ukraine on several fronts, with cruise missiles fired from planes and ships,” the Air Force said on social media.
A Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile crashed Thursday in Belarus, said the authorities of this former Soviet republic allied with Russia and supporting its offensive against Ukraine.
After a series of military setbacks on the ground in late summer and fall, the Kremlin changed tack and began striking steadily in October, with salvoes of dozens of missiles and drones, transformers and Ukrainian power plants.
With the key to serious energy shortages and millions of Ukrainians plunged into the cold and the dark.
Thursday’s bombings come a few days before New Year, the main family holiday in this season in most countries in the region.
Deprived of electricity at 90%
Lviv, the big city in western Ukraine, was 90% without electricity on Thursday after the strikes.
“90% of the city is without electricity (…) The trams and trolleybuses no longer run in the city, there could be water cuts”, indicated the mayor of Lviv, Andriï Sadovy, on the social network Telegram.
In Kyiv, at midday, 40% of the inhabitants were without electricity due to strikes on infrastructure outside the city. According to a military official in the city, the anti-aircraft defense was able to shoot down all of the 16 Russian missiles that targeted the capital.
“Charge your phones and other devices. Stock up on water,” Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitchko wrote on Telegram to his constituents.
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 “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 urgently increase its military aid 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, considering 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 particularly bloody battle for Bakhmut, a city in the east that Russia has been trying to conquer for months, and Kreminna, which 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.
On the Russian side, the Russian anti-aircraft defense shot down Thursday “an unidentified object” near the key military base of Engels, located 500 kilometers from the Ukrainian border and already hit Monday by a deadly drone attack attributed to Ukraine.
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.