Russia launched more than 70 missiles at Ukraine on Friday in one of its biggest attacks since the start of the war, knocking out power in the country’s second-largest city and forcing Kyiv to stage emergency blackouts across the country, Ukrainian officials said.
Two people were killed when an apartment block was hit in central Kryvyi Rih and another was killed in shelling in the southern Kherson, they said. Officials installed by Russia in occupied eastern Ukraine said 12 people had been killed in Ukrainian airstrikes.
Russia flew warplanes near Ukraine in an attempt to distract its air defenses, Ukraine’s air force said. Its army chief said 60 of the 76 Russian missiles had been shot down, but nine Ukrainian electrical installations were damaged, Energy Minister German Galushchenko said.
Ukraine’s electricity grid operator said on Friday it would take longer to repair the national grid and restore power than after previous Russian missile attacks, giving priority to hospitals, water supply facilities and the sewage treatment plants.
“Given that this is already the ninth wave of missile attacks on energy facilities, the restoration of power supply may take longer than before,” Ukrenergo said.
Remnants of an apartment building damaged in a Russian rocket attack are shown in Kryvyi Rih on Friday. At least two people were killed there when a residential building was hit in central Ukraine, while electricity and water services were disrupted in the two largest cities, Kyiv and Kharkiv. (Emergency Service of Ukraine/The Associated Press)
Russia has rained missiles on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure almost weekly since early October following a series of battlefield defeats. Moscow says it’s part of its plan to disable Ukraine’s military; Kyiv says it is a war crime.
“A Russian missile hit a residential building in Kryvyi Rih,” regional governor Valentyn Reznichenko wrote on Facebook. “The staircase was destroyed. Two people died. At least five were injured, including two children. All are in hospital.”
A third person died in a fire following a shelling in Kherson, authorities said, and Kharkiv in the east was also badly hit.
“There is colossal damage to infrastructure, mainly to the energy system,” Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said in a post on the Telegram messaging app. “I ask you to be patient with what is happening now. I know that in your houses there is no light, no heating, no water supply.”
Officials in Russian-controlled areas report casualties
Russian troops are now bogged down trying to hold on to territory in the south and east, about a fifth of Ukraine. The fighting at the front is brutal, with many soldiers on both sides believed to have been killed or wounded, although neither side issues detailed reports of military casualties.
Officials stationed by Russia in occupied eastern Ukraine also reported civilian casualties from Ukrainian shelling in two locations.
At least 11 people were killed and 20 missing, Russian state news agency TASS reported, in the village of Lantrativka.
Leonid Pasechnik, the region’s administrator installed by Russia, called the attack “barbaric”.
People take shelter inside a metro station during a wave of Russian missile attacks in Kyiv on Friday. (Pavlo Podufalov/Reuters)
He said Ukraine was targeting residential neighborhoods, schools and shopping districts in an attempt to “kill as many people as possible.” He did not provide evidence and there was no immediate comment from Kyiv.
The head of a pro-independence “people’s militia” in Luhansk said a civilian had also been killed by Ukrainian shelling in the town of Svatove, about 70 kilometers further south, on Friday morning.
Reuters could not immediately verify the latest accounts from the battlefield, but reported at least three explosions in the snow-covered capital Kyiv, with smoke billowing across parts of the city. It was not clear whether any missiles had gotten past the anti-aircraft defenses.
Local residents receive wood stoves as humanitarian aid arrives in the frontline town of Bakhmut in the Donetsk region on Friday. Many Ukrainians live without electricity, water and gas supplies in the face of the Russian invasion. (Genya Savilov/AFP/Getty Images)
Ukraine has managed to repair much of its electrical infrastructure to restore electricity and water supplies, but each successive attack makes this task more difficult.
A senior Ukrainian presidential official said emergency shutdowns were being introduced across the country.
Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the presidential office, did not give further details, but officials confirmed that power had been cut in the eastern city of Kharkiv, home to more than a million people, and the central city smallest of Poltava.
Infrastructure was also reported to have been affected in the northern Sumy region and the Odesa region on the Black Sea.
EU and US Congress release more funds
Ukrainian defense chiefs predicted on Thursday that Russia would launch a new all-out offensive early next year that could include a second attempt to take the capital, Kyiv. It could happen as soon as January, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, General Valery Zaluzhniy and General Oleksandr Syrskiy said in interviews with The Economist magazine.
The push could be launched from eastern Donbas, southern or neighboring Belarus, and could include another ground assault on Kyiv, which Moscow failed to capture early in its invasion, officials said.
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Ukraine says Putin is preparing a major offensive for the new year
Former Ukrainian Ambassador to Canada Andriy Shevchenko and former Canadian Ambassador to Ukraine Roman Waschuk discuss the potential for a major Russian offensive in the new year and whether Ukraine is getting enough support as Russia continues to abuse its power grid.
Both sides have ruled out a Christmas truce and there are currently no talks to end the conflict, Europe’s biggest since World War II.
The Russian defense ministry released a video on Friday showing joint exercises by Russian and Belarusian troops in Belarus, using tanks and machine guns, as well as drones and practicing crossing a river.
With the invasion now in its 10th month, European Union leaders agreed Thursday to provide 18 billion euros (C$26 billion) in funding to Ukraine next year and hit Moscow with a ninth package of sanctions.
Also, the US Senate on Thursday approved a bill for a record US defense budget of $858 billion next year. The bill, which Biden is expected to sign quickly, provides Ukraine with at least $800 million in additional security assistance through 2023.