After Russia launched more than 50 missiles targeting critical infrastructure facilities, power and water supplies got badly hit across the country, says Ukraine. Russia said it targeted Ukraine’s energy systems and military command.
Russia’s devastating missile attacks on Ukraine’s energy facilities
According to the recent update from the mayor, 40% of residents are devoid of water in the capital Kyiv and 270,000 apartments have no electricity. Energy systems were also devastated in the north-eastern city of Kharkiv. Thirteen people overall, were also injured across the country.
The country’s defence ministry said that long-range high-precision weaponry hit all the “designated objects”.
Ukraine’s military said that 44 cruise missiles were shot down by its air defences launched from the area of the Rostov region of Russia and the Caspian Sea. The strikes came after Russia blames Ukraine for an attack through drone on its Black Sea Fleet in the annexed Crimea.
The mayor of Kyiv, Vitaliy Klitschko, reported shortages of power and water after critical infrastructure was damaged in the Russian attack near the capital.
He firstly said some 350,000 homes were lacking electricity, adding in an after update that many people had been reconnected and 80% of consumers of the city were without water. As residents were eager to collect water from pumps, long queues were seen across the city.
The city authorities said that due to “the effective work of the air defence forces, “no hits were recorded” in Kyiv itself”.
On Monday morning, Missile strikes were also reported in the central Vinnytsia region, as well as Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk in the south-east, and in western Ukraine’s Lviv.
A facility at the Dnipro hydroelectric power plant was also reportedly hit in the Zaporizhzhia region. Overall, 18 facilities were hit in 10 regions of Ukraine, most of them energy-generating.
Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, adding to it, said that “In seven regions, hundreds of localities” were left without power.
Moscow hopes demoralized Ukrainians for peace will negotiate
Moscow would like this recent wave of Russian missile attacks to be seen as a punitive response to the attacks through drones on Russian military targets on Saturday in Crimea.
The Kremlin sees this as a warning: you dare to attack us in Crimea? This is what you can reckon in response. But there is a clear pattern coming out in the last few weeks in this war. The more Russia’s army faces setbacks on the battlefield, the more Ukraine’s civilian population gets punished by its commanders.
Now, with winter just close by, Moscow is hoping to demoralize Ukrainians so that they request their government to ask for peace, on Russia’s terms.
That’s not likely to happen, so far, But there is still a great amount of suffering and damage that can be inflicted on the civilian population through Russia’s weapons.
The Kremlin will also be hoping that, Western support for Ukraine begins to debilitate, as this war drags on.
Russia’s aim is to shatter the supply chain of Western weapons
Russia’s aim is to fracture the supply chain of Western weapons that helps Ukraine to defend itself and try to fight back this Russian invasion.
Residents in the regions under strike were requested to remain in shelters, amidst fears more attacks could follow. They were also warned that “emergency power outages” were being set up across the country.
In neighbouring Moldova, the authorities said that a missile attacked by Ukraine fell in the “northern end of the town of Naslavcea” near the border with Ukraine. Windows were smashed in several houses but there were no reports of any casualties.
Later, Moldova said a Russian embassy employee staying in Chisinau had been told to leave its territory, having been made a “non grata persona”. It did not state who the individual was.
Russia had used its strategic bombers to execute its “massive” strikes, said Ukraine’s Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat to Ukrainian TV.
“Instead of fighting on the battlefield, Russia fights with civilians”, said Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.
Attacking civilian infrastructure amounted to war crimes
Russia has carried out many waves of deadly drone and missile attacks in the last few weeks, reportedly demolishing almost a third of Ukraine’s other energy-generating facilities and power stations before the cold winter period.
Ukraine and its Western allies have constantly said that attacking civilian infrastructure amounted to war crimes. One Russian warship was destroyed in the port city of Sevastopol in a drone strike, on Saturday, said the Russian defence ministry.
It also blamed British specialists for having trained the Ukrainian soldiers who then were responsible for the strikes in Crimea, Ukraine’s southern peninsula, in 2014 annexed by Russia.
Moscow to back its claims provided no evidence.
Ukraine has not said anything on the issue, while the UK defence ministry said that Russia was “peddling wrong claims on an epic scale”.
Read More: UK is involved in Crimea drone strike, says Russia
