Russia launches ‘massive’ aerial attack on Ukraine
Russia on Thursday launched a “massive” aerial attack on Ukraine, Kyiv said, hitting the northeastern city of Kharkiv again and targeting energy facilities across the country.
Russia has launched some of the biggest air campaigns on Ukraine in recent weeks, more than two years into its invasion.
Moscow has heavily attacked Ukraine’s energy facilities, reviving a tactic it used through last winter on a country exhausted by war.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia fired more than 40 missiles and 40 drones at sites in central, eastern and western Ukraine, including the Kyiv region. Officials have so far not reported any deaths.
Zelensky said Moscow was hitting “critical infrastructure”, with various regions reporting that power stations and gas distribution centres had been targeted.
The Ukrainian leader also condemned another “vile missile attack” on Kharkiv, a day after three people were killed in the northeastern city, pounded by Moscow in recent months.
“Russian terrorists once again targeted critical infrastructure,” Zelensky said, adding that not all the missiles had been shot down.
In the Kyiv region, a power station was set on fire. Authorities urged locals to close their windows. The southern Zaporizhzhia and Odesa regions and the western region of Lviv were also hit, officials said.
Zelensky urged Ukraine’s Western partners not to “turn a blind eye” to what was happening and to provide Kyiv with more air defence systems.
His call came as he travelled to Lithuania — one of Kyiv’s staunchest allies against Russia. Ukraine has been suffering from a lack of men and ammunition in recent months and has been weakened by the blocking in the US Congress of key US military aid.
Russia, meanwhile, has been emboldened by some limited success on the front and the wavering of some Western support for Ukraine.
‘Close your windows’
Ukraine’s interior minister Igor Klymenko said hundreds of rescuers were deployed at sites across the country after the “massive” attack.
“For several hours, the Russian military attacked five regions of Ukraine,” he said.
Klymenko said Moscow fired “more than 10 missiles” at Kharkiv, leaving parts of the city without electricity.
“Fortunately, according to operational data, today’s attack resulted in no deaths or injuries,” he said.
In the Kyiv region, the mayor of Ukrainka, a city south of the capital, advised locals to shut their windows while firefighters sought to extinguish a blaze at a local power station.
“I ask everyone to close the windows in their homes tightly so as not to breathe in harmful combustion products,” mayor Oleksandr Turenko said.
“Charge all devices, make maximum water reserves,” he said.
Kyiv region authorities did not name the site but described it as “critical infrastructure (that) was attacked during the air alert”.
Kharkiv hit again
The head of the Kharkiv region, Oleg Synegubov, said Russia fired a S-300 missile at an energy site in the city just after 5am.
“As a result of the shelling, an apartment was also damaged,” he said.
Synegubov said 15 other settlements in the Kharkiv regions were also hit by artillery and mortar attacks.
Kharkiv — Ukraine’s second most populous city, located near the Russian border — has seen near daily attacks in recent days.
In Ukraine’s westernmost region of Lviv, which borders the European Union, authorities said Russia attacked a gas distribution facility and an electricity substation.
Russia, meanwhile, said it had destroyed 12 Ukrainian drones overnight, including three as far east as its Mordovia republic. Others were destroyed over the Kursk, Tambov, Belgorod, Bryansk and Lipetsk regions, it said.