Russia slings missile barrage at Ukraine amid 1st snowfall
KYIV, Ukraine — Russian airstrikes targeted Ukraine’s energy facilities again Thursday 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.
Separately, the United Nations announced the extension of a deal to ensure exports of grain and fertilizers from Ukraine. 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 grain deal, air raid sirens sounded Thursday across Ukraine. At least seven 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 doesn’t hold.
Russia on Tuesday unleashed a nationwide barrage of more than 100 missiles and drones that knocked out power to 10 million people in Ukraine — strikes described by Ukraine’s energy minister as the biggest assault yet on the country’s battered power grid in nearly 9 months of war.
The renewed bombings come as many Ukrainians are coping with the discomforts of regular blackouts and heating outages. A light snow dusted the capital Thursday, where the temperature fell below freezing. Kyiv’s military administration said air defenses shot down four cruise missiles and five Iranian-made exploding drones.
In eastern Ukraine, Russia “launched a massive attack on gas production infrastructure,” said the chief of the state energy
company Naftogaz, Oleksiy Chernishov. He did not elaborate.
Russian strikes also hit the central city of Dnipro and Ukraine’s southern Odesa region for the first time in weeks and hit critical infrastructure in the northeastern Kharkiv region near Izium, wounding three workers.
The head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Andriy Yermak, called the strikes on energy targets “naive tactics of cowardly losers.”
Valentyn Reznichenko, governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, said a large fire erupted in Dnipro after the strikes there hit an industrial target. The attack wounded at least 23 people, Reznichenko said.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said the strikes in Dnipropetrovsk hit a factory that produces military rocket engines.
Elsewhere, a Russian strike that hit a residential building killed at least seven people overnight in Vilniansk in the southern region of Zaporizhzhia. Rescuers combed the rubble Thursday, searching for any other victims.