Russia has unleashed another wave of rocket, drone and missile strikes across Ukraine in its sixth mass air attack since early October, as Kyiv’s first snows of winter put the country’s already damaged energy infrastructure under greater strain.
Ukraine’s authorities said the attack, like the previous five, had been aimed at destroying the country’s energy system.
Strikes on critical infrastructure in Odesa and Dnipro were confirmed by the presidential administration and the regional heads on Thursday morning. Three people were reportedly injured in Odesa region, its authorities said, while a another 14 people were injured, including a teenager, in the strike on Dnipro city, according to its mayor, Borys Filatov. The Dnipro regional administration reported that five people had been injured.
Two rockets and an Iranian Shahed drone were shot down over Kyiv, according to the head of Kyiv region, Dmytro Kuleba.
The head of Mykolaiv region reported that Iranian-supplied Shahed drones were at work over his region. He also said a rocket had been launched in their direction from the Black Sea. He did not confirm whether the attacks had hit their targets. “Crooked, toothless, miserable petty thieves – all you need to know about the Russian army,” he later added on Telegram.
Unofficial Telegram channels reported Ukraine’s air defence systems working in Kharkiv, Cherkasy and Poltava regions.
The strikes came as the first snow of the season fell in Kyiv, dusting the streets of the capital as temperatures fell below freezing. People across Ukraine are starting to worry about how to heat their homes due to blackouts caused by the Russian bombardment.
The head of Ukraine’s presidential administration, Andriy Yermak, said on Telegram that Russia would fail in its attacks on the energy sector. “This is a naive tactic of cowardly losers that we are ready for,” wrote Yermak.
“Ukraine has already withstood extremely difficult blows of the enemy, which did not have the results that these Russian cowards were counting on. We continue to move forward. Do not ignore the air-raid sirens, they will not succeed. We will crush them.”
The Kremlin blamed what it said was Kyiv’s refusal to negotiate for the blackouts.
“The unwillingness of the Ukrainian side to settle the problem, to start negotiations, its refusal to seek common ground, this is their consequence,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.
Ukraine has said it is only prepared to enter negotiations with Russia if its troops leave all parts of Ukraine, including Crimea. Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Ukraine’s president, has further signed a decree saying the country would only negotiate with a Russian leader who had succeeded Vladimir Putin.
Zelenskiy said earlier this month that about 40% of the country’s energy infrastructure had been destroyed since Russia began its missile campaign against its facilities in early October.
Just under 100 missiles were launched into Ukraine on Tuesday, according to its authorities, and although almost three-quarters were caught by Ukraine’s air defence systems, energy facilities in almost every region were targeted. The state energy company Ukrenergo has yet to make a full statement on the latest damage but described the attack as the worst so far.
Emergency blackouts have been implemented across Ukraine’s northern and southern regions in an attempt to stabilise the grid.
Ukrainian investigators in the Kherson region on Thursday meanwhile uncovered 63 bodies bearing signs of torture after Russian forces left, said Ukraine’s interior minister, Denys Monastyrsky. “The search has only just started, so many more dungeons and burial places will be uncovered,” he told the Interfax news agency.
In his nightly address, Zelenskiy said emergency and stabilisation shutdowns were taking place in 18 regions and in Kyiv.
“We are doing everything to restore electricity – both generation and supply. Another meeting of the Ramstein [talks] took place. The key issue [discussed] was the strengthening of our anti-aircraft and anti-missile defence,” he said.
The Ukraine Defense Contact Group meetings, known as the Ramstein talks, refer to a series of regular meetings between Ukraine and its allies, including the US. The first meeting was held in April and the gathering on Wednesday was the seventh. The talks take place at the Ramstein airbase in Germany and are one of the main channels through which Ukraine lobbies for military aid. Zelenskiy also said that he had held talks with the World Bank about restoring damaged infrastructure and public facilities “in order to guarantee a normal life for people”.
“If we survive this winter, and we will do it, Ukraine will definitely win this war,” Zelenskiy said this week.
The cold could make things more difficult for the poorly equipped Russian army, too.
According to US officials, the Kremlin’s decision to pull out of Kherson was based in part on concerns that its soldiers would “be cut off from supplies as winter set in”.
