Russia has launched a wave of attacks on a dozen regions of Ukraine on Tuesday, four days after the withdrawal of Russian troops from Kherson, and in a context in which the great international powers meeting at the G-20 summit reject "an era of war" and try to promote a dialogue between Moscow and kyiv.
The attack, which has left more than seven million people without electricity, is "the largest against energy infrastructure since the war began," denounced the Ukrainian Energy Minister, German Galushchenko.
So far, the Russian siege has damaged around 40% of the Ukrainian power grid.
The alarms have been activated in the early afternoon throughout the country.
Missiles have started falling early on targets in the capital kyiv, where at least one has been killed, and some of the biggest cities, including Kharkiv in the east and Lviv in the west.
The offensive has also hit Dnipro, Vinitsia, Yitomir, Volhynia, Chernigov, Rivne, Mykolaiv, Jemelnitsky, Cherkasi, Poltava and Krivi Rih.
In some of them, to the blackouts we must add the interruption of mobile phone communications.
Attacks similar to those of this Tuesday had already occurred on three Mondays in October, on the 10th, 17th and 31st.
According to data from the presidential office, Russia has launched a total of 90 missiles (from the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea and the Russian region of Rostov), of which 70 have been intercepted by Ukrainian anti-aircraft defenses.
Among the targets achieved are 15 essential facilities for electricity supply, as had already happened during the other three days of massive attacks perpetrated by the Russians in October, which complicates the situation in the country at the gates of a very difficult winter in which Moscow is using cold as a weapon of war.
"This attack may also affect the energy systems of some of our neighbors," Galushchenko warned.
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Last hour of the war in Ukraine
The country's energy situation is “critical”, according to sources from the presidential office, which points out that the main damage has taken place in the north and east of Ukraine.
There are also blackouts in northern, southern, eastern and western regions.
“This is what Russia has to say on the subject of peace talks.
Russian missiles are killing people and ruining infrastructure all over Ukraine right now.
(…) Stop proposing to Ukraine that it accept Russian ultimatums!
This terror can only be stopped with the force of our weapons and principles, ”Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitro Kuleba has claimed on his Twitter account.
The high representative of the European Union, Josep Borrell, has added this Tuesday to these criticisms.
“Russia has made clear its intentions that it will continue the war.
On the one hand,
In kyiv, two residential buildings were hit in the Pechersky neighborhood, where at least one person has been killed.
The authorities have released images showing one of the blocks of houses on fire while firefighters try to put out the fire.
Several missiles —four, according to military sources— have been intercepted by anti-aircraft defenses and have failed to hit their target, according to the city's mayor, Vitali Klitchkó, who was on a trip to Barcelona to attend the Smart City Expo and has advance his return.
The missiles have reached "a couple of apartments" and have caused "a fire", the councilor has recounted, reports
Clara Blanchar.
Also during a good part of the day the sirens have sounded and the anti-aircraft defenses rumbled in Kharkov, the country's second city, located thirty kilometers from the border with Russia.
At 4:15 p.m. local time (3:15 p.m. in mainland Spain), after several detonations that have been heard in different neighborhoods, the city has gone dark.
A major power station located southeast of the town had just been hit by a missile.
This is station number 5, which had already been attacked in September.
“There is no electricity neither in [the city of] Kharkiv nor in the region.
In no populated place”, lamented the governor, Oleg Siniegubov.
With night falling on Kharkov, dozens of people crowded in front of the subway entrances, which have stopped working.
In Yitomir, west of the capital, the attack has left the city in darkness.
In Kirovograd, south of kyiv, two power stations were attacked, according to regional authorities.
In the city of Ternopil, capital of the region of the same name located in the west of the country, in addition to blackouts, municipal authorities have warned citizens to also prepare for possible cuts in communications through mobile phones.
Those responsible for Cherkasi and Krivi Rih have also warned of attacks and blackouts in a trickle of impacts that has not occurred so widely since October 31.
In Krivi Rih (Dnipro), 500 miners were trapped underground by power outages.
Bombing in a Russian town
Shortly after the massive attack on Ukraine, the other side of the border was also hit by another explosion.
In the Russian town of Shebékino, located right on the border that separates the Belgorod region from the Ukrainian province of Kharkov, there were at least two dead and three wounded in another bombing, according to Governor Viacheslav Gladkov, reports
Javier G. Cuesta.
The images broadcast by Russian channels show a residential area.
Shebékino is a strategic city along which numerous Russian military convoys pass through the road and which is home to an important medical center converted into a field hospital.
Although normally the Ukrainian attacks on Russia have been focused on fuel and ammunition depots, it is not the first time that civilian victims have occurred.
On October 22, two civilians died and more than a dozen were injured, according to the Russian authorities, in a town whose inhabitants denounced to this newspaper that they only want to live in peace and recover broken ties with their neighbors.
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