One of the biggest
bombardments since the war started has seen a wave of Russian missile attacks
target cities all around Ukraine.
Mayor Vitaliy
Klitschko reported that explosions in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv resulted in
the hospitalisation of at least three individuals, among them a 14-year-old
girl.
In the cities of
Kharkiv, Odesa, Lviv, and Zhytomyr, blasts were also audible.
According to the
Ukrainian military, 69 missiles were fired, 54 of which were shot down by air defenses.
Mykhailo Podolyak, a
presidential adviser, earlier claimed that more than 120 missiles had been
fired towards infrastructure used by civilians.
Maksym Marchenko, the
regional governor of the southern province of Odesa, described a “huge
missile attack on Ukraine” after the airstrike, which lasted for about
five hours.
Russia allegedly
assaulted Ukraine from “different directions with air and sea-based cruise
missiles,” according to the Ukrainian Air Force. It further mentioned that
many Kamikaze drones had been utilized.
According to the
municipal military administration in Kyiv, debris from missiles that were
intercepted caused damage to two residences. According to Mr. Klitschko, air defenses
shot down 16 missiles above the city.
Governor Vitaly Kim
said that air defenses in the southern district of Mykolaiv stopped five
missiles, while Mayor Andriy Sadovy reported that many explosions had been
recorded in the western city of Lviv.
Mr. Marchenko said
that the Ukrainian military shot down 21 missiles in the Odesa area. A residential
building had been struck by missile pieces, he said, but there had been no
injuries.
A senior adviser to
President Volodymyr Zelensky also reported that a missile had struck a
resident’s home in a settlement in the western part of Ivano-Frankivsk but had
not exploded. The report cannot be independently verified by the BBC.
The strikes,
according to Mr. Podolyak, were “evil,” and he charged Moscow of
wanting “to destroy essential infrastructure and murder civilians in
enormous quantities.”
Recently, Ukraine has
been subjected to dozens of Russian strikes, which have repeatedly resulted in
power outages all around the nation. Herman Halushchenko, Ukraine’s energy
minister, claimed that the most recent attacks had damaged power plants and
described the situation in the Odesa and Kyiv areas as “tough.”
While Mr. Klitschko
said that 40% of Kyiv was still without electricity on Thursday, the mayor of
Lviv reported that 90% of his city was without power.
Odesa and
Dnipropetrovsk areas both reported power outages.
Oleksandr Vilkul, the
chief of the military administration in Kryvyi Rih, in central Ukraine, said
that Russian “ships and planes from the Black Sea” were responsible
for the missiles fired at his city. As a “precaution,” the power had
been turned off in the city.
Russian forces were
poised to launch up to 20 missiles from bases in the Black Sea, Ukraine’s
southern command had already warned.
Moscow has vehemently
denied that its missile attacks intentionally target people. Vladimir Putin,
however, has acknowledged that Russian forces have been attacking Ukraine’s
vital energy installations.
The acknowledgment
came after several world leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron,
said that attacking energy installations may constitute a war crime.
Ukraine claimed to
have intercepted 60 of the more than 70 missiles fired by Russian soldiers in
one salvo earlier this month.
The Ukrainian
government has lobbied with Western politicians to provide it more air defenses,
and lately US President Joe Biden agreed to give them a Patriot system.
The incident on
Thursday occurred barely hours after the Kremlin rejected Ukraine’s proposal
for the start of peace negotiations in 2023.
Melinda Simmons, the
British ambassador to Ukraine, remarked on Twitter that the bombings showed
“Peace between Russia and Ukraine is undesirable. Russia desires Ukraine’s
enslavement “.
The strikes were
denounced as “barbaric, unprovoked acts aimed to bring about ruin and
death” by Maia Sandu, president of neighboring Moldova.
According to Kyrylo
Budanov, head of Ukraine’s intelligence service, Russia would continue
attacking civilian facilities for as long as it could.
He said,
“Continuing that thinking, can they do this long?” “No, there
aren’t many missiles left,” he answered.
“That many
missile attacks can’t be provided by the defense sector at this time. They are
currently looking for missile weapons in other nations of the world for these
and other reasons.”
A senior US source
claimed earlier this month that Moscow has been obliged to employ ammunition
with a long shelf life and a high failure rate recently.
Additionally, the
UK’s envoy to the UN claimed that Russia was seeking to buy hundreds of
ballistic missiles from Iran in addition to other weaponry.
According to Dame
Barbara Woodward, the UK is “almost convinced” that Russia is looking
to get weapons from North Korea and other countries that have been subject to
harsh sanctions since their own supplies are visibly depleting.