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.
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