Ukraine denounced strikes “massive” dozens of Russian missiles which targeted the country’s energy infrastructure this Thursday morning, December 29, leading to new massive power cuts on the eve of the New Year holidays.
Also, in a first since the start of the Russian invasion more than 10 months ago, Belarus, Moscow’s closest ally and rear base of the forces that invaded Ukraine, said it had shot down over its territory. an S300 air defense missile from “of Ukrainian territory”.
“Lukashenko is Putin’s accomplice”
Authorities have released images of fragments that fell in a field in the Brest region near the village of Gorbakha, in the south-west of the country. They also summoned the Ukrainian ambassador to demand an investigation “thorough” and of “punish those responsible”.
“The Ukrainian side does not exclude a deliberate provocation by the Russian terrorist state, which has laid out such a route for its cruise missiles in order to provoke their interception in the airspace above the territory of Belarus”said the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense in a statement, also saying ” ready “ to participate in an investigation into the circumstances of this ” incident “.
Strikes “of senseless barbarism”
In Ukraine, the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, Valéry Zalujny, indicated that 54 of the 69 Russian missiles launched against Ukraine had been shot down on Thursday, “protecting key elements of our economic infrastructure”, according to Defense Minister Oleksiï Reznikov. The Air Force reported 11 Iranian-made Shahed explosive drones destroyed.
But the shots that hit their targets caused further damage to an electricity network already badly damaged by nearly three months of such bombardments. Power cuts have multiplied in the country, while millions of Ukrainian civilians have already lived for weeks with severely rationed electricity, water and heating problems in the middle of winter.
In Ukraine, the cold war is raging
In the Kharkiv region (east), “a 50-year-old man” was killed and one person hospitalized following Russian fire, according to Governor Oleg Synegoubov. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kouleba denounced strikes from a “senseless barbarism” launched against “peaceful Ukrainian cities just before the New Year”.
On Twitter, the head of European diplomacy Josep Borrell blasted an attack that “indiscriminately destroys medical infrastructure and facilities, deliberately targets and kills civilians”.
40% of kyiv residents without electricity
After a series of military setbacks on the ground in late summer and fall, the Kremlin changed tack and in October began regularly hitting Ukraine’s transformers and power plants.
This Thursday, Lviv, the big city in western Ukraine, was 90% without electricity. In the region of the same name, 282 localities were also without power. In kyiv, at midday, 40% of the inhabitants were without electricity due to strikes on infrastructure outside the city.
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According to a military official, the anti-aircraft defense was nevertheless able to shoot down all of the 16 missiles that targeted the capital. But debris fell on homes and a playground, injuring three, including a 14-year-old girl, according to municipal authorities.
In the Bortnychi district, half a dozen houses suffered damage, according to an AFP journalist. In one street lay heaps of cables, planks and bricks.
In Odessa, a major port in the Southwest, 21 missiles were shot down by Ukrainian anti-aircraft defense, according to Governor Maksym Marchenko. But others have hit their target, so there are power cuts there too.
Determined Russia
Russian President Vladimir Putin justified in early December this tactic of massive strikes affecting millions of civilians, justifying them by Ukrainian attacks against Russian infrastructure.
Moreover, he always presents his invasion of Ukraine, which has lasted for more than 10 months, at the cost of heavy losses, as ” a necessity “ensuring that the West was using Ukraine as a bridgehead to threaten Russia.
“A dictator cannot lose a war”: Putin, the human bomb
Again on Wednesday, the head of Russian diplomacy Sergei Lavrov considered that the war in Ukraine had been “prepared by the West”. On the ground, the fighting continues to rage, with a particularly bloody battle for Bakhmout, a city in the east that Russia has been trying to conquer for months, and Kreminna, which Ukrainian forces are trying to retake.
Kherson, a major southern city from which Russian forces fled on November 11, is now the target of almost daily Russian strikes. In Russia, anti-aircraft defense shot down
this Thursday a drone in the region of the key military base of Engels, located 500 kilometers from the Ukrainian border and already hit on Monday by a deadly drone attack attributed to Ukraine.
