Russian strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure on Wednesday led to massive power and water cuts, particularly in the capital kyiv, killing at least six people, causing the disconnection of three nuclear power plants and affecting neighboring Moldova. Volodymyr Zelensky denounced this Wednesday evening before the UN Security Council a “crime against humanity”.
The President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, recalled this Wednesday evening that the bombings “against civilian infrastructure constitute[nt] a war crime and cannot[ven]t go unpunished[s] ».
According to the Ukrainian Air Force, Russia fired around 70 cruise missiles at the country, 51 of which were shot down, along with five suicide bombers. They targeted strategic infrastructure as winter temperatures set in in Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky lamented a “tragic result” while promising that Ukrainians would “overcome everything”. “Unable to win in a fair fight with the Ukrainian army, Russia is waging a cowardly war of terror against civilians,” denounced the head of diplomacy Dmytro Kouleba.
Emergency meeting at the UN Security Council
According to the head of the Ukrainian national police, Igor Klymenko, the Russian bombardments left at least six people dead and 36 injured. In kyiv, “three people were killed. Among them is a 17-year-old girl,” said the mayor of the capital, Vitaly Klitschko. He had announced earlier that an “infrastructure site” had been hit, and said that the water supply had been “suspended throughout Kyiv” because of the strikes. The regional governor, Oleksiï Kouleba, announced to him that “the whole region is without light”.
Another direct consequence of these Russian strikes, Moldova, already plagued by major energy problems caused by the war in Ukraine, was the victim of “massive power outages”, according to its Deputy Prime Minister, Andrei Spinu.
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Wednesday’s strikes proved that Russia should “be recognized as a terrorist state around the world”. The spokeswoman for Russian diplomacy, Maria Zakharova, for her part castigated the decision of the European Parliament, describing it as “idiot”.