Russia on Sunday pummelled Ukraine with one of the largest barrages of the grinding near-three-year war, Ukrainian officials said, forcing power cuts with fears of a precarious winter to come.
Hundreds of missiles and drones streaked across Kyiv’s skies as Russia's invasion dragged past its thousandth day, killing at least two people, leaving a dozen more injured and damaging the country's already beleaguered energy grid.
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The strikes came with Ukraine on the retreat against Russia’s soldiers and the support of its main backer the United States thrown into question by the reelection of Donald Trump to the presidency.
Ukraine’s energy operator DTEK on Sunday announced emergency power cuts in the Kyiv region and two in the east.
Earlier, Ukraine’s Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko said on Telegram that “a massive attack on our energy system is ongoing” and that Russian forces were “attacking electricity generation and transmission facilities throughout Ukraine.”
AFP journalists heard explosions in the early morning in Kyiv and close to Slovyansk in the Donetsk region, with Kyiv’s Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha calling the strikes “one of the largest air attacks” of the conflict.
Russia’s relentless aerial bombardment has destroyed half of Ukraine’s energy production capacity, President Volodymyr Zelensky said this summer.
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Moscow fired 120 missiles and 90 drones at Ukraine, of which 140 were shot down by Kyiv’s air defenses, Zelensky said on Sunday.
Winter near
With the harsh Ukrainian winter fast approaching, the country is already suffering from major energy shortfalls, while its outmanned and outgunned forces have been steadily ceding ground to the Kremlin’s troops for weeks.
Kyiv has implored its Western allies for help to rebuild its energy grid – a hugely expensive undertaking – and to supply its outgunned forces with more aerial defense weapons.
But many in Ukraine fear that Western help will not be as freely given following the imminent return of US President-elect Donald Trump to the White House in January.
The Republican president-elect has frequently questioned the United States’ backing for Ukraine and campaigned with the promise of cutting a quick deal to end the war.
Besides the capital Kyiv’s region, Ukraine’s grid operator DTEK also announced power cuts in the Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk regions in the east, where Russia’s army has claimed the capture of dozens of villages in recent weeks.
Power was also cut off in parts of the southern Black Sea port city of Odesa, its mayor said, while officials warned essential infrastructure was affected in the Vinnytsia, Rivne, Volhynia and Zaporizhzhia regions.
Although the extent of the damage is difficult to estimate at present, the grid operator said that this was the eighth major attack on its power stations this year.
Putin’s response
A Russian drone strike killed two people and injured six others, including two children, in the southern Mykolaiv region, according to Ukraine's emergency service.
Two others were injured in the southern Zaporizhzhia region, according to its governor Ivan Fedorov.
Another suffered wounds in the eastern city of Dnipro, regional governor Serhiy Lysak said.
Meanwhile the capital’s mayor Vitali Klitschko reported two people were wounded in Kyiv after a drone fragment fell on a residential building.
Top diplomat Sybiha branded the barrage as Russia’s “real response” to Western leaders who had sought to reach out to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Kyiv was riled by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz initiating a call with Putin on Friday despite Ukraine’s objections, in what was the Russian leader’s first phone conversation with a major Western leader in nearly two years.
Having repeatedly promised to end the Ukraine war in a day, Trump’s reelection has reignited debate over the prospect of a diplomatic solution to the conflict.
After long dismissing the prospect of talks, Zelensky on Saturday said he wanted to bring an end to the war by “diplomatic means” next year.
Yet Kyiv and the Kremlin remain at odds over the terms of any peace deal.
Putin has said he will only accept talks with Ukraine if Kyiv surrenders Ukrainian territory that Moscow occupies.
Zelensky has rejected Putin’s conditions.
The overnight barrage prompted neighboring Poland to scramble fighter jets and mobilize all available forces on Sunday in response.
Warsaw puts its armed forces on alert whenever attacks against its neighboring country are deemed likely to create a danger for its own territory.
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