Russia resumes barrage of strikes on Ukraine
RUSSIAN air strikes yesterday targeted Ukraine’s energy facilities again as the first snow of the season fell in Kyiv, a harbinger of the hardship to come if Moscow’s missiles continue to take out power and gas plants as winter descends.
On a more positive note, the United Nations announced the extension of a deal to ensure exports of grain and fertilisers from Ukraine that were disrupted by the war.
The deal was set to expire soon, renewing fears of a global food crisis if exports were blocked from one of the world’s largest grain producers.
Even as all sides agreed to extend the deal, air raid sirens sounded across Ukraine yesterday. At least four people were killed and more than two dozen others wounded in the drone and missile strikes, including one that hit a residential building, authorities said.
The Kremlin’s forces have suffered a series of setbacks on the ground, the latest being the loss of the southern city of Kherson.
In the face of those defeats, Russia has increasingly resorted to aerial onslaughts aimed at energy infrastructure and other civilian targets in parts of Ukraine it does not hold.
Yesterday’s salvo appeared to be on a lesser scale than the nationwide barrage of more than 100 missiles and drones that knocked out power to 10 million people in Ukraine earlier this week.
Tuesday’s strikes were described by Ukraine’s energy minister as the biggest missile assault yet of the nearly nine-month-old invasion against the battered power grid.
It also resulted in a missile landing in Poland, killing two people.
Authorities were still trying yesterday to ascertain where that missile came from, with early indications pointing to a Ukrainian air defence system meant to counter the Russian bombardment.
Poland’s President Andrzej Duda yesterday visited the site where the missile landed, and expressed understanding for Ukraine’s plight. “It is a hugely difficult situation for them and there are great emotions, there is also great stress,” he said.
Yesterday’s renewed bombings came as many Ukrainians are coping with the discomforts of regular blackouts and heating outages, as winter approaches. Light snow dusted the capital yesterday, when the temperature fell below freezing.
Russian strikes yesterday hit the central city of Dnipro and Ukraine’s southern Odesa province for the first time in weeks. Critical infrastructure was also hit in the north-eastern province of Kharkiv.
Elsewhere, a Russian strike that hit a residential building killed at least four people overnight in the city of Vilniansk, in the southern province of Zaporizhzhia.
The war’s impact has been felt far beyond Ukraine, perhaps most significantly in global food markets. Ukraine and Russia are among the world’s largest exporters of grain, and Russia is also a significant producer of fertiliser.
There were concerns in recent days about the fate of a United Nations and Turkey-brokered deal meant to address disruptions to those exports that was set to expire tomorrow. UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres confirmed yesterday that it had been extended for four months. The Russian Foreign Ministry confirmed the extension.