(Kiev) Russian forces carried out massive strikes across Ukraine, particularly in the Kharkiv and Odesa regions, in the east, south, but also in the west, local officials announced Thursday. Bombs to Kiev.
Since October and after several military setbacks on the ground, Russia has been bombarding key installations in Ukraine with missiles and drones, each time plunging millions of people into darkness and cold in the middle of a freezing winter.
In the city of Kharkiv, in the east of the country, “the enemy launched about 15 attacks on the city and the region. Residents are again targeting essential facilities,” regional governor Oleg Sinekupov said on social media.
“According to initial reports, a private residential building in the Kharkiv region was hit,” he added, reporting “clear” details of possible victims and the extent of the damage.
Kharkiv Mayor Igor Derekov explained that the city’s “energy infrastructure”, the main one in the region, had been targeted and that some neighborhoods had “problems” with electricity.
Energy facilities in Kharkiv were already affected by Russian strikes in mid-January.
The Governor of Odessa Region (South), Maxim Marchneko, for his part, spoke of a “massive missile attack” that “missiles hit the regional energy infrastructure and damaged residential buildings.”
The attack, which came a year after an invasion by Russian troops on February 24, 2022, resulted in no casualties, according to the governor, but “power supply restrictions” were put in place.
Frequent strikes
In the west, the governor of Khmelnytskyi region, Segiy Gamaliy, urged residents to “stay in shelters” because “the enemy is attacking critical infrastructure in the country.”
The large-scale strikes come shortly after the 27 EU defense ministers met in Stockholm on Wednesday with their Ukrainian counterpart, Oleksiï Reznikov, to negotiate a plan to deliver two billion euros worth of self-propelled bombs and ammunition to Kyiv.
In mid-February, Moscow had already launched a “massive” attack against energy production sites with dozens of missiles, causing Ukraine to temporarily lose a significant part of its energy production capabilities.
After months of restrictions due to repeated Russian strikes, Kyiv announced it had regained enough electricity generation to avoid cuts.
The latest strikes followed the announcement by Yevgeny Prigojine, head of the Russian paramilitary organization Wagner, that he was taking over the eastern part of Bakhmout, a small town in eastern Ukraine that has been at the center of months of fighting. Strategic value.
Bakhmout could fall “in the next few days”, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters, although “this does not necessarily represent any turning point in the war”.
On Wednesday, US intelligence director Avril Haynes said the major Russian offensive feared a few weeks ago had been repelled and that the Kremlin was unlikely to make “major territorial gains” in Ukraine this year and would settle for reduced targets.
