Russian strikes target critical infrastructure in three regions of Ukraine

Hundreds of areas have no electricity this Monday morning, following fresh Russian attacks in three regions of Ukraine.

Many of these attacks targeted critical infrastructure in three regions, including the capital, leaving “hundreds of areas” without electricity, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Chmigal announced moments earlier.

The head of government reported “five drone strikes” on Kyiv and “missile attacks” on the regions of Dnipropetrovsk (Middle-East) and Sumy (North-East).

“All services are currently working (…) to restore power supply”, he assured, “to save electricity consumption, especially during peak hours” from the population of these three areas.

Energy installations and residential buildings

In Kyiv, just a week after the last Russian attacks on the capital, “energy installations and a residential building were damaged,” said Denis Chmigal. The Ukrainian president confirmed there are “dead and wounded” after Russian attacks in the region of Sumy. In Dnipropetrovsk, “our troops shot down three enemy missiles”, but “one rocket hit an energy infrastructure installation”.

In Kyiv, a series of explosions were heard early in the morning and an air alert siren sounded shortly before the first explosion. An AFP journalist saw one of these drones pounce on a building as two kneeling policemen tried to shoot it down with their service weapons.

“All night and all morning the enemy is terrorizing the civilian population,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said on social media. “The enemies can attack our cities, but they will not be able to break us,” he said.

Kyiv’s military administration indicated that “four attacks” have been recorded in the capital, which, since early last week, has been targeted again by the Russian military, while the city has been spared from bombings since late June. was.

The Moscow military meanwhile said that “the Russian armed forces continue to conduct long-range air and sea strikes with high-precision weapons against military command and energy system facilities in Ukraine.”

“All targeted facilities have been affected,” she said.

“Every Monday”

“It looks like they attack us every Monday”, he said, “it’s a new way to start the week”, a taxi driver waiting for a race away from the station, he said.

The Ukrainian presidential staff chief, Andriy Yermak, acknowledged that these Russian strikes were part of “desperation” and called on Western allies to provide “more weapons to defend the sky and destroy the enemy”. “In the past 13 hours, the Ukrainian military has shot down 37 Iranian Martyr-136 drones and 3 Russian cruise missiles,” the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said on Twitter.

In the country’s south, the military previously indicated it had shot down 26 Martyrs-136 overnight from Sunday to Monday, despite Tehran’s denials, according to the West and Ukraine, Iranian planes bought by Moscow.

On 10 October, a massive Russian bombing not seen in months and targeting essential infrastructure affected Kyiv and other cities in Ukraine, killing at least 19 people and injuring 105 and sparking an international outcry. .

They were launched in retaliation for a major explosion that partially destroyed the Crimean Bridge, a symbolic and strategic structure connecting Russian territory with the Crimean peninsula, captured by Moscow in 2014. Kyiv has neither acknowledged nor denied its involvement.

necessary infrastructure

In response to last week’s bombings, Ukraine’s Western allies have promised it more air defense systems, and some have already been delivered. On Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he was satisfied with these major attacks and decided that new massive bombings in Ukrainian cities were not necessary “at the moment”.

Russia is on the defensive in Ukraine on most of the front, retreating north, east and south since September. The only stretch where Russian forces are still advancing is the area of ​​the city of Bakhmut (East) that Moscow has been trying to take since the summer.

except Russia

Ukraine also called for Russia’s exit from the G20 a month before the summit in Indonesia on Monday. The newly appointed UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Austrian Valker Turk, has also urged civilian targets not to be targeted in the bombings.

Former Russian president and current Security Council number 2, Dmitry Medvedev, warned Israel against arming Ukraine, believing it would “destroy” relations with Russia. “It looks like Israel is preparing to arm the Kyiv regime,” he said on his Telegram account.