Russia has fired missiles at targets across Ukraine in a second massive airstrike in three days. 34 people were injured in the city of Pavlohrad in the south-eastern region of Dnipropetrovsk, according to the Ukrainian authorities. 15 of 18 cruise missiles were shot down by the air defenses.
The capital Kiev and other major cities, which also had air alerts, remained protected. Impacts with far-reaching consequences were only reported from Pavlohrad, a railway junction behind the southern and eastern fronts. 19 blocks of flats, 25 houses, three schools, three kindergartens and several shops were damaged. An industrial company was hit and a major fire broke out in the area. Three children were among the 34 injured.
Russia, on the other hand, spoke of night-time rocket attacks on military targets in Ukraine. The Ministry of Defense announced that all targets had been hit. These include weapons depots and ammunition factories. A Russian-appointed official in the occupied Zaporizhia region released images of the major fire in Pavlohrad and said Russian forces had attacked military targets there.
A crater littered with debris was visible in the backyard of a house on the outskirts of Pavlohrad. Nearby houses were badly damaged. In the city center, the windows of a dormitory belonging to a chemical plant were shattered.
The Russian attacks also damaged power plants in the Dnepropetrovsk region and southern Kherson region, leaving thousands without power, the Energy Ministry said. Repairs to the power grid would take several days.
Russia fired rockets at all of Ukraine on Friday. It was the first massive nationwide airstrikes in nearly two months. 23 civilians were killed in the city of Uman in the center of the country when a rocket hit a residential building. Russia denies targeting civilians.
In view of the sluggish advance on the front in the east, the leadership in Moscow seems to be returning to its winter tactic of large-scale nationwide airstrikes, while Ukraine, using tanks and fighter jets supplied by the West, prepares for a counter-offensive to recapture the occupied territories in the south and east.
A spokeswoman for Ukraine’s Southern Military Command said on Sunday that subverting Russia’s logistics is one of “the elements”. She was referring to Saturday’s major fire on Russia’s annexed Crimea peninsula, which is said to have destroyed a large fuel depot in the port city of Sevastopol. The fire has caused great concern among the Russian military, Ukrainian media quoted the spokeswoman as saying.
Russia spoke of a drone attack on the fuel depot. The Ukrainian military has not directly claimed responsibility for this. However, it has said that ten oil tanks with a capacity of around 40,000 tons of fuel for Russia’s Black Sea fleet were destroyed in the process.
In Russia, according to the authorities, a freight train was derailed by an “explosive device” near the border with Ukraine on Monday. There were no casualties, said the governor of the Bryansk region, Alexander Bogomas, in the online service Telegram. The governor of the northern Leningrad region, Alexander Drozdenko, said power lines there had been blown up by an “explosive device”.
The Russian State Railways said the locomotive caught fire and derailed. As a result, seven wagons derailed. During the more than year-long Russian offensive in Ukraine, there have been multiple reports of acts of sabotage on railways in Russia and Belarus, which is allied with Moscow. (Reuters, AFP)
