In the early hours of Friday morning, Russia carried out its biggest bombing raid far from the front in Ukraine so far this year.
Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, has reported that the Russian army has fired 90 missiles and 60 drone bombs against nine provinces.
The objective has once again been the country's electrical grid.
The invader's missiles have hit the largest dam in Ukraine, in Zaporizhzhia, where an important hydroelectric plant is located that has also been hit.
Provincial authorities have assured that the dam does not present a risk of fracture.
The electricity generation plant is “in a critical situation,” according to Ukrhydroenergo, the public company that manages the plants.
These attacks have caused five deaths throughout the country.
The Russian attack comes a week after an intense Ukrainian offensive against the Russian oil industry.
A dozen oil refineries have been damaged so far this year in Russian territory, affecting 15% of fuel production, according to experts cited by the Bloomberg agency.
Emergency personnel rescue a person from the rubble of a bombed building, this Friday in Khmelnitsky.STATE EMERGENCY SERVICE HANDOUT (EFE)
In a message on his Telegram channel, Zelensky has quantified the projectiles launched by 60 Iranian-made Shahed drones and about 90 missiles.
“The world sees the targets of Russian terrorists clearly: power plants and power supply lines, a hydroelectric dam, ordinary residential buildings, even a trolleybus,” he denounced.
Ukrenergo, the state energy company, has claimed that it is the largest attack on energy infrastructure of the entire war, which began more than two years ago.
The bombing has caused power outages, especially in Kharkiv, Ukraine's second largest city by population.
In the province of Khmelnitsky, two people have died and another 14 have been injured, as reported by the Ukrainian Minister of the Interior, Igor Klimenko.
The Minister of Energy, Herman Galushchenko, has confirmed that Russian missiles and drones have destroyed electrical infrastructure in several regions, and has warned that one of the networks connecting to the Zaporizhzhia atomic plant has been left unusable.
This nuclear plant has been occupied by Russian troops since 2022 and disconnected from the Ukrainian energy system.
Power plant attacked this Friday in Kharkiv.
Sofia Gatilova (REUTERS)
Anti-aircraft ammunition deficit
Russia is taking advantage of the superiority of its arsenal and the deficit in anti-aircraft ammunition that Ukraine suffers.
The newspaper
Telegraf
reported this March, citing sources from the Ukrainian Armed Forces, that they only have anti-aircraft projectiles to shoot down one in five missiles that arrive in the country;
Until now, according to
Telegraf
, they were able to intercept four out of five.
The Ukrainian Air Force has reported that it has been able to neutralize 92 of the 151 drones and missiles fired by the invader.
This represents an anti-aircraft effectiveness of 60%, far from the 80% that was achieved on average in 2023.
Emergency personnel next to the rubble of an attacked building, this Friday in Zaporizhia.KATERYNA KLOCHKO (EFE)
Zelensky has insisted on the need to receive more anti-aircraft batteries from his allies, specifically from the United States: “The Patriot [American anti-aircraft system] must defend Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia.
Anti-aircraft guns are necessary to protect people, infrastructure, homes and dams.
"Russian missiles are not delayed, as are aid packages for our State."
The president was thus referring to the Republican blockade in the United States Congress to approve the more than 50 billion euros in military assistance that President Joe Biden wants to allocate to Ukraine.
Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia are located 40 kilometers from the Russian lines, making them especially vulnerable.
Anti-aircraft defenses have little time to react to a missile attack.
Russian bombing has been carried out with ballistic and cruise missiles fired from bombers on Russian territory, as well as Shahed bomb drones.
The Russian army has been perfecting its tactics for four months to strike far from the front and bypass Ukrainian anti-aircraft barriers.
Attacks that combine different types of weapons that reach the target city at the same time, saturating anti-aircraft defenses, are becoming more frequent.
kyiv is where Russia is most carefully applying new bombing tactics, as was seen in the early hours of Thursday, when the capital suffered a massive attack with ballistic and cruise missiles.
A trolleybus burned in the Russian attack this morning against the city of Zaporizhzhia.AP
Ukrainian military analysts highlighted that there are Russian projectiles that are programmed to change course, enter and leave regions, instead of sailing directly towards the target, and Ukraine has fewer resources to intercept them.
The special envoy of EL PAÍS was able to hear on Thursday that the capital's defenses also used anti-aircraft machine guns, an unusual and inefficient weapon to shoot down rockets, although they are effective against drones.
The
Defense Express
media , specialized in military information, explained on March 13 that Russia was also perfecting the Shahed, incorporating advanced satellite navigation equipment into them.
The attack this morning was reminiscent of the Russian offensive against the Ukrainian energy sector that began in October 2022 and ended in January 2023. During those months the bombings were periodic and caused millions of people to live through the autumn and winter with permanent cuts of electricity, heating and water.
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