RAccording to Ukrainian reports, ussland destroyed a third of Ukraine’s power infrastructure within a week with its attacks. “Since October 10, 30 percent of Ukraine’s electricity plants have been destroyed, leading to massive power outages across the country,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Twitter on Tuesday. There is “no more room for negotiations” with the “regime” of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Zelenskyy added.
More than 1,100 Ukrainian villages are without power after the Russian attacks. According to the government in Kyiv, the country is in a precarious situation after the attacks on the infrastructure. “The situation is now critical across the country because our regions depend on each other,” Deputy Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Kyrylo Tymoshenko told Ukrainian television. The whole of Ukraine must now prepare as well as possible for failures in the power and water supply as well as heating.
According to the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office on Tuesday, two people were killed in an attack on an energy storage facility in Kyiv. Another person was injured. According to the public prosecutor’s office, “munitions of war prohibited under international law” were used in the attack.
Russian attacks on energy infrastructure led to power outages in several regions of the country on Tuesday. Also in parts of the capital Kyiv there were interruptions in the electricity and water supply, as announced by the local electricity supplier DTEK. Several towns in the region west of Kyiv Zhytomyr and parts of the city Dnipro in central-eastern Ukraine were also without power.
Russia had already attacked important infrastructure in three Ukrainian regions on Monday. According to the Ukrainian government, the power went out in hundreds of towns and villages. The Russian military had declared that it would target energy installations.
A Kiev power plant was destroyed in the attacks
Source: Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images/Global Images Ukraine
In the southern Ukrainian port city Mykolayiv a Russian missile hit a residential building. A wing of the downtown building was completely destroyed, a Reuters reporter reports. A huge crater can now be seen there. Firefighters recovered the body of a man from the rubble. The occupants of the building had wanted to get to safety in the basement when the rocket hit.
Russia has launched air alerts across the country with new missile and drone strikes on Ukraine. Authorities in numerous regions – including Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk and Mykolaiv – reported on Tuesday that air defenses were active. Still, rockets fell in many places.
Also from the capital Kyiv there were reports of explosions again. Smoke is hanging over the north of the Ukrainian capital, according to Reuters reporters and Ukrainian authorities. Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the deputy head of the presidential office, says there have been three Russian attacks on “critical energy infrastructure”. In the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolaliv, the power supply was restored after attacks during the night.
Also in the city Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov reported rocket fire. “There were two series of explosions in the city within five minutes,” he said. According to initial findings, an industrial company was hit. The subway ceased train service and resumed operations as a protective bunker.
A building hit by a rocket in Mykolaiv
Source: REUTERS
The missile destroyed an entire wing of the house
Source: REUTERS
In the area of Dnepropetrovsk Explosions were reported in Krivy Riy and in the regional capital Dnipro.
Russian military bloggers close to the Kremlin also reported shelling in numerous regions – and published a large number of photos and videos with clouds of smoke over cities on social networks, which are intended to document the new attacks. The authenticity of these recordings, which were also distributed in Ukrainian channels, could not initially be verified.
The Ukrainian armed forces said that several attacks had been repelled. Russia had recently intensified the shelling in the war against Ukraine that had been going on for almost eight months.
“The sooner this war will end”
Meanwhile, Ukraine is also looking for an answer to Russia’s new tactic of frequent airstrikes with Iranian-made combat drones. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy asked the international community for more and better anti-aircraft weapons. “When we talk about air defense, we’re talking about real human lives,” he said in his video address on Monday evening. “It is not only in the interests of Ukraine. The smaller Russia’s terrorist capabilities, the sooner this war will end.”
The leadership in Tehran denies having supplied Russia with kamikaze drones. But Federal Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock also cast doubt on this account. “The kamikaze drones that were shot down there and that also hit Kyiv, it’s very, very clear where they come from,” said the Greens politician to the ZDF “heute journal”.
On Monday, Russia itself had to deal with the consequences of the war it had started against Ukraine. A Sukhoi Su-34 fighter jet crashed in the Russian city Yeysk on the Sea of Azov over a residential area. At least six people were killed. The Ministry of Defense in Moscow announced that one of two engines caught fire when the machine took off from a nearby air base. The two-man crew rescued themselves with parachutes. The machine was on a training flight. According to the rules, such flights take place without ammunition. However, the tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda interpreted the explosions as meaning that the machine was armed. The port city of Yeysk is so close to Ukraine that airstrikes can be launched from there.
Air raids into the night
In the Ukrainian capital Kyiv the fourth air alert of Monday did not end until after midnight. According to the authorities, air defenses were deployed around the city of over a million inhabitants to intercept incoming drones. One such drone was shot down from the site browary reported on the eastern outskirts. At least four people were killed in drone attacks on Kyiv in the morning, including a young couple with a pregnant wife. “(Russia’s President) Vladimir Putin can take credit for another achievement, he killed another pregnant woman,” said Zelenskyy.
Zelenskyy said Ukraine had intercepted 37 drones and several cruise missiles since Sunday evening. Were observed over Kyiv Iran’s Shahed 136 single-use combat drones. Since last week there have been more than 100 attacks with such drones, said Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba. “We call on Tehran to immediately stop all arms deliveries to Russia,” the ministry said in a statement.
Baerbock for new sanctions against Tehran
Foreign Minister Baerbock spoke out in favor of further sanctions against Iran if the delivery of the drones by the Islamic Republic to Moscow is proven. She had already announced in the European Council on Monday that “in my view, with a view to this delivery of drones from Iran to Russia, another package of sanctions against the Iranian regime must follow,” she said on ZDF’s “heute journal”. Baerbock also said that there must be clarity about the origin of the drones for another sanctions package. “Of course, everything has to be legally clean.”
In Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, which lasted almost seven months, the two sides again exchanged many prisoners on Monday. According to the Presidential Office of Ukraine in Kyiv, 108 captured Ukrainian soldiers and civilians returned to their homeland. “Ukraine is not letting anyone down,” wrote Chief of Staff Andriy Yermak. On the Russian side, the Defense Ministry confirmed the homecoming of 110 prisoners. These included 72 Russian seamen from civilian ships who had been held in Ukraine since the war began in February.
US warns Iran suppliers
The US has threatened sanctions against companies and countries involved in Iran’s drone program in connection with the recent airstrikes. “Anyone doing business with Iran that has any connection to UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) or ballistic missile development should be very careful,” said US State Department spokesman Vedant Patel. The US would “not hesitate to use sanctions,” he added.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused Russia of targeting “civilians and civilian infrastructure”. This is “a sign of growing desperation” in Russia, he told reporters in California.
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