Ukraine on Monday received new Western air defense systems intended to counter Russian missiles, which regularly rain down on cities across the country, causing water and electricity cuts as winter approaches.
After several series of Russian strikes which left hundreds of thousands of people without power, the authorities of the region of kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, spoke of a situation which remains “tense” for the supply of energy.
The regional military administration called on residents to “use electricity sparingly”, while the operator Ukrenergo had to make “emergency stops”.
A Russian drone and missile attack on October 31 left nearly 80% of the capital’s inhabitants without water and 350,000 homes without electricity, before some of the damage was repaired.
To deal with these bombings, President Volodymyr Zelensky called on Western countries to create a “shield” capable of protecting the critical infrastructures targeted by Moscow.
According to Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov, kyiv on Monday received NASAMS and Aspide air defense systems from the United States, Spain and Norway.
“These weapons will significantly strengthen the Ukrainian military and make our skies safer,” Reznikov wrote on Twitter.
These deliveries follow those, in particular, of the latest generation German “Iris-T” system or the French surface-to-air missiles “Crotale”. The United Kingdom has announced the dispatch of AMRAAM missiles.
Faced with Russian bombardments, Westerners hope to provide Ukraine with a “patchwork” anti-aircraft defense using some modern and some older equipment.
According to Ukrainian authorities, Russia has destroyed around 40% of Ukrainian energy infrastructure since early October, including using Iranian-made suicide bombers.
“Stabilization” in Kherson
On the Russian side, the occupation authorities of the city of Kherson, in southern Ukraine, announced the “stabilization” of the water and electricity supply the day after two strikes for which Russians and Ukrainians accuse each other .
These strikes also damaged the Kakhovka hydroelectric dam, occupied by Russian forces and which supplies annexed Crimea, in an area where Ukrainian troops have been on the offensive for weeks.
” The experts […] have partially restored the functioning of vital supplies in each microdistrict of the city,” the occupation administration told Russian news agency TASS on Monday.
Kherson has been the main Ukrainian city taken by Russian forces since the invasion began in February. Faced with the battle to come, Moscow has organized evacuations of residents denounced as “deportations” by kyiv.
While the last four starts to the week have been marked by heavy Russian bombardment of Ukrainian cities, Monday morning was relatively calm, with hazy gray skies in Kyiv not conducive to air raids.
“We have known for eight months that this can happen every day and we have adapted, I do not change my routine for this, I will work like every day,” a resident of the capital told AFP. , Aliona Plekh, 21 years old.
According to the Ukrainian military, Russian forces have launched 4 missiles and 24 aerial bombardments in the past 24 hours across the country.
Victims in Zaporizhia, Kherson and Sumy
At least one person was killed in the shelling in the southern Zaporizhia region, one injured in the neighboring Kherson region and another killed in the northern Sumy region, according to the respective regional authorities.
The Russian army has again accused Ukrainian forces of having fired “seven large-caliber shells” at the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe, occupied by Moscow since March, without causing an increase in radiation .
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov repeated on Monday that Moscow was “open” to the possibility of negotiations with kyiv, once again denouncing Volodymyr Zelensky’s refusal to dialogue.
In Zaporijjia, in southern Ukraine, residents who fled the Russian occupation told AFP journalists of an atmosphere of paranoia made up of searches and confiscations of telephones.
“We had to delete all our messages. God save us if we say something against Russia. No one felt safe,” said Irina Mykhailena, from the occupied city of Berdyansk.