Russia on Wednesday launched a wave of missiles and drones at Ukrainian energy facilities, intensifying a months-long bombing campaign at a precarious moment of the war for Ukraine.
The barrage came a day after Kyiv said it had carried out its largest aerial attack of the war on Russian army factories and energy hubs hundreds of kilometers from the front line.
The Ukrainian air force said Russia launched 43 cruise and ballistic missiles as well as 74 attack drones in the barrage, which targeted sites mainly in western Ukraine.
Photo: AFP
Oleksandra Komuna, an elderly resident of the western Ukrainian village of Sknyliv, was at home during the attack when lamps and plaster began falling.
“All the doors and windows were blown out, everything was blown out. The car was damaged, and the roof was damaged. There were cracks everywhere,” she said. “It’s such a disaster.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was quick to condemn the strikes and called for more robust security assistance from allies abroad.
“Another massive Russian attack. It is the middle of winter, and the target for the Russians remains the same: our energy sector,” he wrote on social media.
The Russian Ministry of Defense confirmed in a daily briefing that its forces had carried out “high precision” strikes on energy facilities that “support the Ukrainian military-industrial complex.”
It also repeated the claim that all the designated targets had been struck.
However, the Ukrainian air force said that it had shot down 30 of the missiles and 47 drones, while Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmygal said the Russian attack had “failed”.
Hours after the barrage, Zelenskiy called on the West to use about US$250 billion of unallocated frozen Russian assets to buy Kyiv weapons. He was speaking at a press conference in Warsaw with Polish President Andrzej Duda.
“Ukraine will take this money, allocate a large amount for domestic production and for the import of exactly those types of weapons that Ukraine does not have,” he said.
The EU last week paid out to Kyiv the first 3 billion euros (US$3.1 billion) of a loan backed by the interest earned on frozen Russian assets.
The US Department of State on Wednesday announced new sanctions on “more than 150 individuals and entities involved in Russia’s defense industry and supporting its military-industrial base.”
Meanwhile, US president-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said that the new administration would seek “bold diplomacy” to end the war.
“There will have to be concessions made by the Russian Federation, but also by the Ukrainians,” he said.
Moscow has pursued a months-long bombing campaign against Ukrainian energy infrastructure, claiming the attacks targeted facilities that aid Kyiv’s military.
The Russian military had accused Kyiv of using US and UK-supplied missiles for one of the strikes the previous day and promised it would “not go unanswered.”
On Wednesday evening in Russia’s Voronezh Oblast bordering Ukraine several drones “sparked a fire at an oil depot,” Voronezh Governor Alexander Gusev said on Telegram, as videos posted by witnesses showed a substantial blaze.
Kyiv and Moscow’s escalating drone and missile attacks come at a difficult moment for Ukraine across the sprawling front line.
At several key points in the northern Kharkiv and eastern Donetsk regions, Russian forces have been able to steadily advance by exploiting their advantages in personnel and resources.
Building on those gains, the Russian defense ministry on Wednesday said that its forces had captured the village of Ukrainka in the industrial Donetsk region that the Kremlin claims is part of Russia.
Despite the war having ground on for nearly three years, there are still some areas of cooperation between Moscow and Kyiv, which announced on Wednesday that they had exchanged 25 prisoners of war each.
A new online voting system aimed at boosting turnout among the Philippines’ millions of overseas workers ahead of Monday’s mid-term elections has been marked by confusion and fears of disenfranchisement. Thousands of overseas Filipino workers have already cast their ballots in the race dominated by a bitter feud between President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and his impeached vice president, Sara Duterte. While official turnout figures are not yet publicly available, data from the Philippine Commission on Elections (COMELEC) showed that at least 134,000 of the 1.22 million registered overseas voters have signed up for the new online system, which opened on April 13. However,
ALLIES: Calling Putin his ‘old friend,’ Xi said Beijing stood alongside Russia ‘in the face of the international counter-current of unilateralism and hegemonic bullying’ Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday was in Moscow for a state visit ahead of the Kremlin’s grand Victory Day celebrations, as Ukraine accused Russia’s army of launching air strikes just hours into a supposed truce. More than 20 foreign leaders were in Russia to attend a vast military parade today marking 80 years since the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, taking place three years into Russia’s offensive in Ukraine. Putin ordered troops into Ukraine in February 2022 and has marshaled the memory of Soviet victory against Nazi Germany to justify his campaign and rally society behind the offensive,
CONFLICTING REPORTS: Beijing said it was ‘not familiar with the matter’ when asked if Chinese jets were used in the conflict, after Pakistan’s foreign minister said they were The Pakistan Army yesterday said it shot down 25 Indian drones, a day after the worst violence between the nuclear-armed rivals in two decades. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif vowed to retaliate after India launched deadly missile strikes on Wednesday morning, escalating days of gunfire along their border. At least 45 deaths were reported from both sides following Wednesday’s violence, including children. Pakistan’s military said in a statement yesterday that it had “so far shot down 25 Israeli-made Harop drones” at multiple location across the country. “Last night, India showed another act of aggression by sending drones to multiple locations,” Pakistan military spokesman Ahmed
Former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad is giving US President Donald Trump three months before his fellow Americans force him to rethink his stringent global tariff strategy, accusing the US leader of “living in an old world.” In an interview two months ahead of his 100th birthday, the plain-speaking Mahathir said: “Trump will find that his tariffs are hurting America, and the people in America will end up against him.” The US president’s stop-start tariff rollout would impact Asian nations hard, including Malaysia, which faces a 24 percent levy in July unless the two countries can strike a deal. “It’s going to cause