By Hanna Arhinova and Elena Becatoros -
The Associated Press
Russia launched a large-scale missile and drone strike on Thursday that struck residential buildings and critical infrastructure in Ukraine, killing six people and leaving hundreds of thousands without heat or electricity.
It is the most serious attack in the last three weeks and endangered the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe, by leaving it disconnected from the electricity grid for a few hours.
These plants need constant power to run the cooling systems and prevent a catastrophic meltdown.
Air raid sirens blared throughout the night as attacks raged across a wide swath of the country, including the west, which is far from the front lines.
The president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, assured that it occurred while many people were sleeping, it was an attempt by Russia to "intimidate the Ukrainians again."
A column of smoke rises over a attacked sector in kyiv on March 9, 2023.Future Publishing via Getty Images
The Russian Defense Ministry said the offensive was in retaliation for a recent incursion into Russia's western Briansk region by what it says are Ukrainian saboteurs.
Ukraine denied this accusation and warned that Russia could use any allegation to justify escalating attacks.
The war has largely stalled on the battlefield in the winter.
Russian forces began attacking Ukraine's electricity supply in October, in an attempt to demoralize the civilian population and force Ukraine to negotiate.
Subsequently, the attacks became less frequent, and analysts speculate that Russia may be running low on ammunition.
The last major bombardment took place on February 16.
In total, Russia launched 81 missiles and eight Iranian-made Shahed drones on Thursday, according to the commander-in-chief of Ukraine's armed forces, Valerii Zaluzhnyi.
Of them, 34 missiles and four drones were intercepted, he added.
The mix makes it difficult for air defenses to deal with the attack, according to analysts.
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Among the weapons used were six Kinzhal hypersonic cruise missiles, which are among the most sophisticated weapons in the Russian arsenal, Ukrainian air force spokesman Yurii Ihnat said.
Ukraine claims to have no air defenses that could intercept them.
The Russian Defense Ministry said the offensive hit military and industrial targets in Ukraine, "as well as the energy facilities that supply them."
The missile attacks will not affect the military's combat capability, but "they are playing on the nerves of the civilian population in Ukraine," Ukrainian military analyst Oleh Zhdanov told The Associated Press news agency.
Nearly half of the homes in the capital were left without heat, as were many in Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, where running water was also cut off on a day when the minimum was expected to be around the point freezing, according to local authorities.
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Some 150,000 homes lost power in Ukraine's northwestern Zhytomyr region, while emergency blackouts occurred in the southern port of Odessa due to damaged power lines.
Viktor Bukhta, 57, a resident of kyiv's Sviatoshynski district, where authorities say three people were injured, said a missile struck nearby in the early hours of the morning.
"We went out into the yard.
There were injuries,” she recounted, “then the cars caught fire.
We tried to put them out with vehicle fire extinguishers."
The head of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said he was "astonished by the complacency" of organization members regarding the dangers posed by the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
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“What are we doing to prevent this from happening?
We are the IAEA, we are supposed to worry about nuclear safety," its director general, Rafael Mariano Grossi, told the board of directors at a meeting held on Thursday, according to a statement from the organization.
“Every time we are rolling a dice,” he said.
“And if we let this go on and on, one day our luck will run out,” he warned.
The agency has placed teams of experts at the four Ukrainian nuclear power plants to reduce the risk of serious accidents.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba was scathing about the Russian attack, writing on Twitter: "No military targets, just Russian barbarism."
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The kyiv municipal government said the capital was attacked with missiles as well as explosive drones.
Many were intercepted, but their energy infrastructure was hit.
Smoke could be seen billowing from a facility in the Holosiivskyi district, as police had cordoned off all roads leading to it.
Three men and two women were killed in the western region of Lviv after a missile hit a residential area, Governor Maksym Kozytskyi said.
Three buildings were destroyed and rescue teams were searching through the rubble.
A sixth person was killed and two others injured in multiple attacks in the Dnipropetrovsk region targeting its energy infrastructure and industrial facilities, according to the governor, Serhii Lysak.
In addition to the barrage of missiles, Russian airstrikes killed six civilians on Wednesday and Thursday, according to Ukrainian authorities, including three people at a bus stop in Kherson.