Russian missiles have targeted cities across Ukraine in one of the heaviest bombardments since the beginning of the conflict.
At least three individuals, including a 14-year-old girl, were hospitalized following explosives in the Ukrainian capital, according to Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko.
Explosions were also heard in Kharkiv, Odesa, Lviv, and Zhytomyr.
The Ukrainian military reported 69 missile launches, with 54 intercepted by air defenses.
Mykhailo Podolyak, a presidential adviser, stated previously that more than 120 missiles had been fired toward civilian facilities.
The air strike lasted over five hours, and Maksym Marchenko, the regional chairman of the southern province of Odesa, described it as a “major missile attack against Ukraine.”
According to the Ukrainian Air Force, Russia assaulted the country from multiple directions using cruise missiles launched from the air and the sea. It was also revealed that several Kamikaze drones had been employed.
In an operational briefing, Brig Gen Oleksiy Hromov stated that the strikes had targeted energy infrastructure across the entire country.
According to the city’s military administration, debris from intercepted missiles caused damage to two residences in Kyiv. Mr. Klitschko stated that sixteen missiles were destroyed by air defenses over the city.
In the southern district of Mykolaiv, Governor Vitaly Kim said that five missiles were intercepted by air defenses, while in the western city of Lviv, Mayor Andriy Sadovy reported many explosions.
Mr. Marchenko stated that 21 missiles were intercepted by the Ukrainian military in the Odesa region. He noted that missile fragments had struck a residential building, but there were no reports of casualties.
And in a village in the Ivano-Frankivsk area’s western region, a senior adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky reported that a missile had landed in a resident’s home but did not explode.
Mr. Podolyak described the strikes as “evil” and accused Moscow of attempting to “destroy vital infrastructure and murder large numbers of civilians.”
In recent weeks, dozens of Russian assaults on Ukraine have resulted in recurrent power outages around the country. The Energy Minister of Ukraine, Herman Halushchenko, stated that recent attacks had damaged power-generating infrastructure and that the situation in the Odesa and Kyiv regions was “tough.”
Thursday, the mayor of Lviv stated that 90 percent of his city was without electricity, while Mr. Klitschko stated that 40 percent of Kyiv was without power.
There were additional reports of power outages in the regions of Odesa and Dnipropetrovsk.
Oleksandr Vilkul, the chief of the Military Administration in the city of Kryvyi Rih in central Ukraine, stated that the missiles fired at his city originated from Russian “ships and planes from the Black Sea.” The city’s electricity was cut off as a “precaution,” he added.
Already, Ukraine’s southern command had issued a warning that Russian forces were preparing to launch up to twenty missiles from Black Sea sites.
Moscow has repeatedly denied that its missile attacks target people. However, President Vladimir Putin recently confessed that Russian troops have been attacking vital energy infrastructure in Ukraine.
The acknowledgment followed accusations by some world leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron, that attacking electricity infrastructure could constitute a war crime.
In a barrage earlier this month, Ukraine claimed to have intercepted sixty of more than seventy Russian missiles.
The Ukrainian government has pleaded with Western politicians for additional air defenses, and US President Joe Biden has agreed to deploy the Patriot system.
The incident on Thursday occurred just hours after the Kremlin rejected Ukraine’s proposal that peace negotiations may begin in 2023.
Melinda Simmons, the British ambassador in Kyiv, stated on Twitter that the bombings indicated “Russia does not desire peace with Ukraine. Russia seeks Ukraine’s domination.
And Maia Sandu, the president of neighboring Moldova, condemned the attacks as “barbaric, unprovoked crimes aimed to cause death and ruin.”
Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukrainian intelligence, told that Russia would continue to attack civilian facilities for as long as it could.
“In continuation of this notion, can they last this long?” “No, since there are not many missiles remaining,” he replied.
“The defense industry is unable to produce sufficient quantities to support so many missile strikes. This is another reason why they are currently attempting to locate missiles in other nations.”
A senior US source told Reuters earlier this month that Moscow has been compelled to utilize decades-old munitions with a high rate of failure in recent weeks.
And the UK’s ambassador to the United Nations stated that Russia was attempting to purchase hundreds of ballistic missiles from Iran.
Dame Barbara Woodward stated that the United Kingdom is “almost likely” that Russia is attempting to procure weapons from North Korea and other strongly sanctioned nations as its stockpiles diminish.
