Firefighters put out fire at substation after Kharkiv missile attack
Russia admitted on Friday that it was “in a state of war” two years after it invaded Ukraine and launched massive missile and drone attacks on its neighbor’s territory.
Russia launched nearly 90 missiles and more than 60 Iranian-designed kamikaze drones, damaging dozens of energy facilities including power stations, in a move that Ukrainian officials said was aimed at crippling the country’s electricity and power supplies. Heating supply.
Russia said the attacks were retaliation for a series of attacks by Ukraine on its borders in recent weeks.
According to the Ukrainian Interior Ministry and local officials, at least five people were killed and more than 20 injured.
“We are in a state of war,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview with a pro-Kremlin newspaper published on Friday.
The admission marks an escalation in the official language used to describe the conflict, which the Kremlin initially described as a “special military operation.”
Peskov said: “Yes, it started as a special military operation, but once this group was formed there, when the West collectively became a participant on the Ukrainian side, for us it became a A war.”
“Legally, this is a special military operation. But in fact, it has turned into a war,” he added.
Moscow has often accused the West of being directly involved in the conflict by supplying arms to Ukraine.
Moscow’s Defense Ministry called Friday’s attack “retaliation” for recent attacks in Ukraine and said it targeted Ukraine’s “energy bases, military-industrial complex, railway hubs and arsenals.”
“All the objectives of the mass strike have been achieved,” the statement said.
-“The largest ever recorded”-
Ukraine’s state-run power grid Ukrenergo said the attack on the energy network was “the largest on record.”
“Dozens of power system facilities were damaged,” including thermal and hydroelectric power plants, the report said.
The United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine said more than 1.5 million people were without power in at least eight regions.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday renewed his call for more Western weapons and blamed political “indecision” for killing Ukrainians.
Ukraine has been facing a shortage of ammunition to protect its skies and ground as the U.S. Congress shelved a vital $60 billion military aid package.
“Russian missiles will not be delayed, nor will the aid package for our country. The ‘Shahed’ (drone) will not be as indecisive as some politicians. It is important to understand the costs of delays and postponed decisions,” he said.
“We need air defense to protect people, infrastructure, homes and dams. Our partners know exactly what we need. They can absolutely support us… Life must be protected from these inhumans coming from Moscow.”
– ‘Under control’ –
The Ukrainian Air Force said it shot down 37 of 88 missiles launched during the night and shot down 55 of 63 drones.
The mayor of the northeastern city of Kharkiv said the strike had completely cut off the city’s electricity and heating supplies. At least 200,000 people in the western Khmelnytsky region and about 260,000 people in southern Odessa also faced power outages.
“Our goal is not just destruction, but another attempt to cause a massive failure of the country’s energy system like last year,” Energy Minister German Galushenko said.
Last winter, Russia launched a series of daily air strikes on Ukraine’s power grid, plunging millions of people into darkness and without warmth for hours in sub-zero temperatures.
But the country’s energy network has remained largely stable this year.
Despite the blackout, Prime Minister Denis Shmigal said on Friday: “The situation in the energy sector is under control.”
Romania, Slovakia and Poland were providing emergency power, Galuchenko said.
– Summer Offensive –
The attack temporarily severed one of two power lines supplying power to the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest in southeastern Ukraine and occupied by Russian forces at the start of the war.
The plant has suffered numerous power outages since the war began and relies on emergency diesel generators and safety systems.
Eight Russian missiles hit Ukraine’s largest hydroelectric power plant, causing “very serious” damage to the facility, the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine said.
Photos on social media showed a fire breaking out at the Dnipro hydropower station and a trolley bus being destroyed.
Governor Ivan Fedorov said three people were killed in the city of Zaporizhia, where the power station is located, including the driver of a trolleybus that was hit by a missile as it was crossing a dam.
Ukrainian Ground Forces Commander Alexander Pavlyuk also said on Friday that Russia may be preparing to launch a summer offensive and is building a force of more than 100,000 troops.
In Russia, a woman was killed in an attack in Russia’s Belgorod region on the border with Ukraine, the governor said.
Moscow’s FSB security service said it had arrested seven pro-Ukrainian guerrillas in the capital, the latest in a series of similar cases.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
