Strikes put Ukraine in darkness; missiles cross into Poland

By Associated Press: Russia pounded Ukraine’s vitality services Tuesday with its greatest barrage of missiles but, putting targets throughout the nation and inflicting widespread blackouts, and a US official stated missiles crossed into Nato member Poland, the place two folks have been killed.

A defiant Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy shook his fist and declared: “We will survive everything.”

Polish authorities spokesman Piotr Mueller didn’t instantly affirm the knowledge from a senior US intelligence official, who spoke on situation of anonymity due to the delicate nature of the scenario. But Mueller stated prime leaders have been holding an emergency assembly because of a “crisis situation.”

Polish media reported that two folks died Tuesday afternoon after a projectile struck an space the place grain was drying in Przewodów, a Polish village close to the border with Ukraine.

Neighboring Moldova was additionally affected. It reported large energy outages after the strikes knocked out a key energy line that provides the small nation, an official stated.

Zelenskyy stated Russia fired at the least 85 missiles, “most of them at our energy infrastructure,” and shut down energy in lots of cities.

“We’re working and will restore everything. We will survive everything,” the president vowed. His vitality minister stated the assault was “the most massive” bombardment of energy services within the practically 9-month-old Russian invasion, putting each energy era and transmission programs.

The minister, Herman Haluschenko, described the missile strikes as “another attempt at terrorist revenge” after army and diplomatic setbacks for the Kremlin. He accused Russia of “trying to cause maximum damage to our energy system on the eve of winter.”

The aerial assault, which resulted in at the least one dying in a residential constructing within the capital, Kyiv, adopted days of euphoria in Ukraine sparked by considered one of its greatest army successes — the retaking final week of the southern metropolis of Kherson.

The energy grid was already battered by earlier assaults that destroyed an estimated 40 per cent of the nation’s vitality infrastructure.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has not commented on the retreat from Kherson since his troops pulled out within the face of a Ukrainian offensive. But the beautiful scale of Tuesday’s strikes spoke volumes and hinted at anger within the Kremlin.

By putting targets within the late afternoon, not lengthy earlier than nightfall started to fall, the Russian army pressured rescue employees to labor at the hours of darkness and gave restore crews scant time to evaluate the harm by daylight.

More than a dozen areas — amongst them Lviv within the west, Kharkiv within the northeast and others in between — reported strikes or efforts by their air defenses to shoot missiles down. At least a dozen areas reported energy outages, affecting cities that collectively have thousands and thousands of individuals. Almost half of the Kyiv area misplaced energy, authorities stated. Ukrainian Railways introduced nationwide practice delays.

Zelenskyy warned that extra strikes have been doable and urged folks to remain protected and search shelter.

“Most of the hits were recorded in the center and in the north of the country. In the capital, the situation is very difficult,” stated a senior official, Kyrylo Tymoshenko.

He stated a complete of 15 vitality targets have been broken and claimed that 70 missiles have been shot down. A Ukrainian Air Force spokesman stated Russia used X-101 and X-555 cruise missiles.

As metropolis after metropolis reported assaults, Tymoshenko urged Ukrainians to “hang in there.”

With its battlefield losses mounting, Russia has more and more resorted to focusing on Ukraine’s energy grid, seemingly hoping to show the method of winter right into a weapon by leaving folks within the chilly and darkish.

In Kyiv, Mayor Vitali Klitschko stated authorities discovered a physique in considered one of three residential buildings that have been struck within the capital, the place emergency blackouts have been additionally introduced by energy supplier DTEK.

Video revealed by a presidential aide confirmed a five-story, apparently residential constructing in Kyiv on fireplace, with flames licking via flats. Klitschko stated air protection items additionally shot down some missiles.

Dutch Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra took to a bomb shelter in Kyiv after assembly his Ukrainian counterpart and, from his place of security, described the bombardment as “an enormous motivation to keep standing shoulder-to-shoulder” with Ukraine.

“There can be only one answer, and that is: Keep going. Keep supporting Ukraine, keep delivering weapons, keep working on accountability, keep working on humanitarian aid,” he stated.

Ukraine had seen a interval of comparative calm since earlier waves of drone and missile assaults a number of weeks in the past.

The strikes got here as authorities have been already working furiously to get Kherson again on its toes and starting to analyze alleged Russian abuses there and within the surrounding space.

The southern metropolis is with out energy and water, and the pinnacle of the UN human rights workplace’s monitoring mission in Ukraine, Matilda Bogner, on Tuesday decried a “dire humanitarian situation” there.

Speaking from Kyiv, Bogner stated her groups want to journey to Kherson to attempt to confirm allegations of practically 80 instances of pressured disappearances and arbitrary detention.

The head of the National Police of Ukraine, Igor Klymenko, stated authorities are to start out investigating reviews from Kherson residents that Russian forces arrange at the least three alleged torture websites in now-liberated components of the broader Kherson area and that “our people may have been detained and tortured there.”

The retaking of Kherson dealt one other stinging blow to the Kremlin. Zelenskyy likened the recapture to the Allied landings in France on D-Day in World War II, saying each have been watershed occasions on the street to eventual victory.

But massive components of japanese and southern Ukraine stay beneath Russian management, and combating continues.

Zelenskyy warned of doable extra grim information forward.

“Everywhere, when we liberate our land, we see one thing — Russia leaves behind torture chambers and mass burials. … How many mass graves are there in the territory that still remains under the control of Russia?” Zelenskyy requested.

Read | Power off in a number of Ukrainian cities after Russia launches recent airstrikes

Published On:

Nov 16, 2022