Multiple regions of Ukraiไne, including its capital, faced a massive Russian missile attack on Thursday, the biggest wave of strikes in weeks targeting power s꧋tations and other critical infrastructure during freezing weather.
Air raid si🍃rens rang out across the country. Mykha✤ilo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said Russia launched over 120 missiles. There were no immediate reports of any deaths.
Russia dispatched explosive drones to selected regions overnight before broadening the barrage with “air and sea-based cruise missiles launched from strategic aircraft and ships” in the morning, the Ukrainian air force🧜 reported.
The widespread atta𝓡ck was the latest in a series of Russian strikes on power and water supplies that have increased the Ukrainian populat𝓰ion's suffering.
Moscow has launched such attacks on a weekly basis since Octoberꦍ, while its ground forces struggle to advance.
On Thursday, air defence systems were activated in the capital Kyiv to fend off strikes, accord💦ing to the regional administration. Sounds of explosions were൲ heard in the city.
At least three people were wounded and hospitalised, including a 14-year-old girl, Mayor Vitali K⛎litschko said. He warned of power outages in the capital, asking people to stockpile water and to charge their electronic devices.
After more than 10 months of fighting, Russia⭕ and Ukraine are locked in a grinding battle of attrition. The Ukrainian military has reclaimed swaths of Russian-occupied territory in the country's northeast and south, and continues to resist persistent Russian attempts to seize all of the industrial Donbas reℱgion.
At the same time, Moscow has methodically targeted Ukrainian power facilities and other key infrastructure in a bid to wea🃏ken the country's resolve and force it to negotiate on Russian terms.
While the Ukrainian military reported success in shooting down incoming Rus🍷sian missiles and explosive drones after earlier attacks, some still reached their targets.
Most cities have gone without heat, internet service and electricity for hours or days at🤡 a time.
Anastasia, a medic who took shelter on Thursday at a central Kyiv subway station and gave only her first name, said she 𒅌was tired of the war.
“We don't know how long the war will last. It's h𓆉ard to be afrai🌃d every day and put your life on hold,” she said.
Numerous explosions also took place in Kharkiv, which is located in eastern Ukraine and the country's secꦑond-largest city, and in the city of Lviv near the border with Poland, ac༒cording to their mayors.
About 90 per cent of Lviv was without electricity,✱ Mayor Andriy Sadovyi wrote on Telegram. Trams and trolley b🐼uses were not working, and residents might experience water interruptions, he said.
Ukrainian 𓃲authorities in several regions said some incoming Russ✃ian missiles were intercepted.
The governor of southe🃏rn Ukraine's Mykolaiv province, Vitaliy Kim, said five missiles were shot down over 🦋the Black Sea.
🔯The Ukrainian military's 👍command North said two were downed over the Sumy region, located on the border with Russia in the country's northeast.
Fragments from downed Russian missiles damaged two private buildings in the Darnytskyi district of Kyiv, the city administration sa🗹id.
An industrial facility and a playground in neighbourhoods located across the Dnওieper River also were damaged, city officials said. No casualties were immediately reported.
As the latest wave of Russian strikes began on Thursday, authorities in the Dnipro, Odesa and Kryvyi Rih regi﷽ons said they switched off electricity to minimize the 💙damage to critical infrastructure facilities if they were hit.
Earlier this month, the United States agreed to give a Patriot missile ba💝ttery to Ukraine to boost the country's defense. The US and other allies also pledg🌸ed to provide energy-related equipment to help Ukraine withstand the attacks on its infrastructure.
Podolyak, an adviser to Zelenskyy, said that Russia was aiming to “destroy critical infrastructure and kill civilians en ma🐷sse”.
“We're waiting for further proposals from 'peacekeepers' about peaceful settlement,' security guarantees for RF' and undesirability of provocations,” Podolyak wrote on Twitter, a sarcastic reference to statements from some in the West who urged Ukr😼aine to seek a political settlement of the conflict.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on M𝓰onday that his nation wants a “peace” summit within two months at the United Nations with Secretary-General António Guterres as mediat꧟or.
Kuleba said Russia must face a war-crimes tribunal before his country directly talksღ with Moscow. He said, however, that other nations should feel free to engage with the Russians.
Commenting on the summiꦿt proposal on Thursday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova dismissed it as “delirious” and “hollow,” describing the proposal as a “publicity stunt by Washington that tries to cast the Kyiv regime as a peacemaker”.
“It's an attempt to giv🐠e a semblance of legitim﷽acy to a meaningless discussion that will not be followed by any concrete steps,” Zakharova said during a briefing.
Russian officials have said that any peace plan can only proceed from Kyiv's recognition of Russia's sovereignty over the regions it illegally annexed from Ukraine in September.
