Fresh Russian strikes hit cities across Ukraine on Thursday, crippling the country’s energy infrastructure and plunging millions into darkness as winter sets in and temperatures drop.
Repeated barrages have disrupted electricity and water supplies across Ukraine, but the Kremlin blamed civilians’ suffering on Kyiv’s refusal to negotiate.
Journalists in several Ukrainian cities said the latest assault coincided with the season’s first snow, after officials in Kyiv warned of “difficult” days ahead.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“Currently, more than 10 million Ukrainians are without electricity,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Thursday, adding that the regions of Kyiv, Odesa, Vinnytsia and Sumy were most affected.
The strikes on Ukraine’s power grid follow a series of battlefield setbacks for Russia, including last week’s retreat from Kherson.
Since Russian forces ended their eight-month occupation of the strategic southern city, chilling accounts have emerged, with Ukrainian ombudsman Dmytro Lubynets describing the conditions there as “horrific.”
Lubynets said authorities had uncovered Russian “torture chambers” where dozens of people had been abused and killed.
Kherson residents on Thursday rushed to stockpile food, blankets, diapers and winter clothing, with shouting matches and shoving erupting as volunteers tossed supplies into crowds that had waited hours in freezing rain.
As winter descends, Moscow and Kyiv extended an agreement allowing Ukraine to export grain through the Black Sea, after the deal’s looming expiration had sparked fears for the global food supply.
As Russia steps up its aerial bombardment of Ukraine, officials said energy infrastructure and other civilian targets are being barraged.
Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Governor Valentyn Reznichenko said strikes had hit the administrative center of Dnipro.
“An industrial enterprise has been hit. There is a big fire,” he said, later announcing that 23 people were injured, including a 15-year-old girl.
“Four missiles and five Shahed drones were shot down over Kyiv,” the capital’s regional administration said, referring to suicide drones Moscow has been deploying in swarms against Ukrainian targets.
Kharkiv Oblast Governor Oleg Synegubov said that Russia hit “critical infrastructure” in strikes that injured three people in the region.
Zelenskiy described Russia as a “terrorist state.”
The Kremlin, however, said Kyiv was ultimately to blame for the blackouts for being unwilling to negotiate and find “common ground.”
On Tuesday, the largest onslaught of Russian missiles on infrastructure across Ukraine cut power to millions, but supplies were largely restored within hours.
A cold snap has increased energy demands, and government energy adviser Oleksandr Kharchenko said that half of Ukraine was experiencing disruptions.
Tensions spiked earlier this week after a missile landed in a Polish town on the border with Ukraine, and there was a flurry of accusations over who was responsible for the blast that killed two farm workers.
Reports indicate that it was a Ukrainian missile that went astray. Zelenskiy seemed to soften his comments blaming Russia for the incident, which had raised the specter of forcing a NATO response.
“I don’t know what happened. We don’t know for sure. The world does not know,” Zelenskiy said.
Ukrainian Minster of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba also appeared to roll back Kyiv’s position that it was a Russian missile following a call with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
The conflict also reverberated in European courts this week as a Dutch judge on Thursday sentenced two Russians and a Ukrainian to life in prison over the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over Ukraine in 2014, killing all 298 people on board.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
US President Donald Trump yesterday announced sweeping "reciprocal tariffs" on US trading partners, including a 32 percent tax on goods from Taiwan that is set to take effect on Wednesday. At a Rose Garden event, Trump declared a 10 percent baseline tax on imports from all countries, with the White House saying it would take effect on Saturday. Countries with larger trade surpluses with the US would face higher duties beginning on Wednesday, including Taiwan (32 percent), China (34 percent), Japan (24 percent), South Korea (25 percent), Vietnam (46 percent) and Thailand (36 percent). Canada and Mexico, the two largest US trading
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
RSS