(Kyiv) Russian forces have carried out massive strikes across Ukraine, including in the Kharkiv and Odessa regions, and explosions were heard in Kyiv, local authorities said Thursday, as the battle for Bakhmout’s control is raging.
Since October and after several military setbacks on the ground, Russia has been bombarding key energy facilities in Ukraine with missiles and drones, each time plunging millions of people into darkness and cold in the freezing winter. .
Before dawn Thursday, in Kharkiv, in the east of the country, “the enemy carried out about 15 strikes on the city and the region. The occupants are once again targeting essential facilities,” regional governor Oleg Synegubov said on social media.
“According to initial information, a private residential building in the Kharkiv region was hit,” he added, announcing “clear” details of possible victims and the extent of the damage.
Kharkiv Mayor Igor Terekhov explained that the city’s “energy infrastructure”, the main one in the region, had been targeted and that there were “problems” with electricity in some neighborhoods.
Energy facilities in Kharkiv had already been hit by Russian strikes in mid-January.
The governor of the Odessa region (south), Maksym Marchneko, for his part reported that “missiles hit the regional energy infrastructure and damaged residential buildings”, speaking of a “massive missile strike”.
The attack, which came just over a year after the invasion by Russian troops on February 24, 2022, did not cause any deaths, according to the governor, but “restrictions on the supply of electricity” were put in place in place.
Two people were injured, however, according to a spokesman for local rescuers.
The mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klistchko, reported explosions in the south of the capital on Thursday. Air defense was deployed there, as in other parts of the country, according to the authorities.
“Explosions in the Holosiivskyi district of the capital. All services go there,” Klitschko said on social media, referring to a neighborhood in the south of the city.
Frequent strikes
In the West, Khmelnytskyi Region Governor Segiy Gamaliy urged residents to “stay in shelters” as “the enemy is hitting critical infrastructure in the country”.
The police reported explosions in Mykolaiv (south) and the media in the regions of Lviv (west) and Dnipro (east) in particular.
These large-scale strikes come the day after the announcement by the boss of the Russian paramilitary organization Wagner, Evgeny Prigojine, of the capture of the eastern part of Bakhmout, a small town in eastern Ukraine at the heart of the fighting for months, despite a disputed strategic value.
Bakhmout could fall “in the coming days”, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told the press, adding however that “this does not necessarily reflect any turning point in the war”.
Ukrainian officials, including President Volodymyr Zelensky himself, have warned, however, that the city’s fall could pave the way for Russian advances in the east.
These latest strikes follow a meeting on Wednesday of the 27 EU defense ministers in Stockholm, with their Ukrainian counterpart Oleksiï Reznikov, to negotiate a plan for deliveries of shells and ammunition to Kyiv, which could be increased to two billion euros. euros ($2.9 billion CDN).
The Ukrainian president welcomed UN Secretary General Antonion Guterres to Kyiv on Wednesday, notably to discuss the extension of an agreement allowing Ukraine to export its cereals.
In mid-February, Moscow had already carried out a “massive” attack with dozens of missiles against energy production sites causing Ukraine to temporarily lose a significant part of its generation capacities.
Kyiv announced shortly after having regained sufficient electricity production to avoid cuts, after months of restrictions due to repeated Russian strikes.
On Wednesday, US Intelligence Director Avril Haines said the big Russian offensive that was feared a few weeks ago has fizzled and that the Kremlin is unlikely to make “major territorial gains” in Ukraine this year and looks set to continue. settle for lowered targets.