- choice of words
- BBC News World
image source, Reuters
Smoke was seen on the outskirts of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv after a Russian missile attack on Monday.
Russia launched more than 50 missiles at critical infrastructure in Ukraine, including the capital Kyiv, on Monday, causing power and water outages, Ukrainian authorities said.
Kyiv Mayor Vitaly Klitschko said that 80% of residents do not have water, and about 350,000 apartments do not have electricity.
Energy facilities in the northeastern city of Kharkiv were also attacked.
Russia said its high-precision, long-range weapons targeted Ukraine’s military command and energy systems.
The country’s Ministry of Defense added that all “marked facilities were affected”.
The bombings came after Russia blamed Ukraine for a drone attack on its Black Sea fleet on the Russian-annexed Crimean peninsula.
Klitschko reported on the lack of water in Kyiv after the power plant near the city was killed in the Russian attack.
He also said that engineers were immediately dispatched to restore power to the city.
The authorities pointed out that “no hits were recorded” in Kyiv due to the “effective work of the anti-aircraft defense forces”.
Rocket attacks were also recorded in the central region of Vinnytsia, as well as in Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporozhye in the southeast and Lviv in the west of Ukraine.
According to reports, a facility at the Dnieper hydroelectric plant in the Zaporizhia region was also attacked.
In total, 18 installations, mostly aggregates, were attacked in 10 regions of Ukraine, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said.
He added that “hundreds of cities in seven regions” were left without electricity.
It was not immediately known if there were any victims.
image source, EPA
In Kyiv, many residents hid inside the city’s metro stations.
massive attacks
Authorities urged residents of the targeted regions to stay in shelters for fear of new attacks.
They are also warned to maintain themselves “extraordinary blackouts” throughout the country.
In neighboring Moldova, authorities reported that a missile shot down by Ukraine landed on the “northern edge of the town of Naslavce” near the Ukrainian border.
There are no reports of casualties, but the windows of several houses were broken.
Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat told Ukrainian television that Russia used its strategic bombers to carry out “massive” strikes.
The Ukrainian military later said 44 of more than 50 X-101 and X-555 cruise missiles launched from Russia’s Rostov region and the Caspian Sea had been shot down.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba pointed out that “instead of fighting on the battlefield, Russia is fighting civilians.”
In recent weeks, Russia has carried out several waves of deadly missile and drone strikes, reportedly destroying nearly a third of the country’s power plants and other energy facilities before the cold winter sets in.
Ukraine and its Western allies have repeatedly said they are targeting civilian infrastructure represents war crimes.
image source, Ukrainian Ministry of Digitization
All regions of Ukraine except the annexed Crimea in the south are marked in red as having been attacked from the air on Monday morning.
On Saturday, a Russian warship was damaged in the port city of Sevastopol by a drone attack, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced.
He also accused British special forces of training Ukrainian soldiers who later carried out attacks on Crimea, a peninsula south of Ukraine annexed by Russia in 2014.
Moscow he offered no evidence to support his claims.
Ukraine has not commented on the issue, but the UK Ministry of Defense said Russia was “peddling false claims on an epic scale”.
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