KYIV | Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities were hit on Tuesday by new massive Russian strikes – around 100 missiles – against energy networks which made the situation “critical” and left at least one dead.
• Read also: At G20, Russia under pressure to end the war
• Read also: Moscow considers Kyiv’s conditions “unrealistic” to start negotiations
More than 7 million Ukrainian homes are without electricity, according to Kyiv.
“More than seven million homes are now cut off from electricity,” after 15 energy facilities across Ukraine were damaged, Deputy Head of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, said on social media. “Our electrical engineers are now doing everything they can to reconnect the power supply as soon as possible,” he added.
These strikes came a few days after a humiliating retreat of Russian forces in the south of the country and in the middle of the G20 summit in Indonesia.
“Russian terrorists have carried out a new planned attack on energy infrastructure. The situation is critical,” deputy head of the presidency Kyrylo Tymoshenko said on Telegram.
In Kyiv, where two residential buildings were affected, “the rescuers found the body of a deceased person”, and the rescue operations were still in progress, indicated for his part the mayor of the capital Vitaly Klitschko.
“In the capital, at least half of the (residents) are without electricity,” he said on Telegram. The national operator “triggered emergency power cuts throughout Ukraine”, especially in kyiv, “to balance the network”, he added.
Air defense sirens sounded across Ukraine shortly before 3:30 p.m. (1:30 p.m. GMT). A few minutes later, explosions were heard in particular in Kyiv, Lviv (west) and Kharkiv (northeast).
“About a hundred missiles were fired (…) from the Caspian Sea, the (Russian) region of Rostov”, and also “from the Black Sea”, indicated Yuri Ignat, a spokesman for the army of the Ukrainian air, on television..
“Several missiles were shot down by the air defense” over the capital, said the mayor of Kyiv.
burning building
A Ukrainian presidential administration official released a video showing a five-story building in flames.
Other cities have been targeted elsewhere in the country.
In the northeast, “missile attack against the Industrialniï district in Kharkiv”, indicated on Telegram Igor Terekhov, mayor of the second city of Ukraine. And in the west, “explosions are heard in Lviv. Everyone stay safe!”, urged his Lviv counterpart, Andriï Sadovy, on Telegram, who clarified that “part of the city (was) without electricity” and that the metro was at a standstill.
In Rivné (west), the mayor, Oleksandre Tretyak reported on social networks “a strike on an essential site”, without giving more details. “The city is partly without electricity,” he lamented.
The same situation in the city of Kremenchuk, in central Ukraine, where the town hall deplored “a strike on critical infrastructure near (the city)”.
Khmelnytsky, in the center, was also hit by “two strikes”, announced the regional governor, Serguï Gamaliï.
The previous strikes that targeted the Ukrainian capital dated back to October 10 and 17, and had above all targeted, as elsewhere in the country, Ukrainian energy infrastructure, in order to deprive the population of electricity at the approach of winter.
The strikes targeted kyiv four days after the humiliating withdrawal of Russian forces from part of the Kherson region, including the southern city of the same name, after nearly nine months of occupation.
New Russian retreat
The Kremlin had to resolve to do so because of a Ukrainian counter-offensive galvanized by the weapons delivered by the West. He had already had to withdraw from the north of the country in the spring, then from the northeast in September.
Sign of the difficulties of the Russians on the ground, the occupation authorities in the region of Kherson, which Moscow claims the annexation, had to abandon a new city, Nova Kakhovka.
This city is located on the left (eastern) bank of the Dnieper, where the Russian forces had withdrawn last week because they could not hold the right (western) bank.
The Russian occupation administration does not indicate, however, if the Russian army remains deployed in the city or if it also withdraws.
After the November 11 Russian withdrawal from the right bank of the Dnieper, “Nova Kakhovka came under direct fire from heavy artillery and mortars of the Ukrainian Armed Forces,” the occupation administration said.
“Life in the city has become dangerous,” she added, saying “thousands” of residents had left it.
This city is located near the Kakhovka hydroelectric dam, taken by the Russians at the start of their offensive against Ukraine at the end of February.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has in the past accused Moscow forces of having “undermined” the dam and power plant units, adding that if the structure exploded, “more than 80 localities” would be flooded.
According to Kyiv, a destruction of this infrastructure would also have an impact on the water supply of all of southern Ukraine and could affect the cooling of the reactors of the Zaporijjia nuclear power plant.
Moscow’s intransigence at the G20
On the diplomatic front, the leaders of many G20 countries, which brings together the biggest economic powers on the planet, have tried to increase pressure on Russia to end its war.
But Moscow, which had sent its head of diplomacy Sergei Lavrov there to Indonesia, Russian President Vladimir Putin not having wanted to make the trip, gave no sign of wanting to stop its attacks.
The Russian minister accused Ukraine of preventing the holding of peace negotiations by demanding that Russian troops leave its territory first.
“All the problems come from the Ukrainian side which categorically refuses negotiations and puts forward manifestly unrealistic demands,” he lamented.
Mr. Lavrov left the summit on Tuesday, “as planned” according to the Russian public news agency Ria Novosti, giving way to Finance Minister Anton Silouanov.