KYIV, March 9 (Reuters) – Russia launched a massive wave of missile attacks across Ukraine as people slept on Thursday, killing at least six civilians, knocking out power and forced a nuclear power plant off the grid.
The first major missile attack since mid-February broke the longest period of comparative calm since Moscow began a campaign of attacks on civilian infrastructure in Ukraine five months ago. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said infrastructure and residential buildings in 10 regions were hit.
“The occupiers can only terrorize civilians. That’s all they can do. But it won’t help them. They can’t avoid responsibility for everything they’ve done,” Zelenskiy said in a statement.
At least five people were killed in a missile that destroyed a house in a village in the western region of Lviv, according to emergency services. Drone footage from the area, about 700 km (440 miles) from any military battlefield, showed a flattened house surrounded by badly damaged buildings.
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Another civilian was reportedly killed by missiles in the central Dnipro region. Three civilians were separately reported killed by artillery in Kherson.
In the capital Kyiv, residents were awakened by explosions. The seven-hour air strike alert overnight was the longest of the Russian air campaign that began in October.
“I heard a very loud explosion, very loud. We quickly jumped out of bed and saw a car on fire. Then other cars were also on fire. The glass was broken on balconies and windows,” said Liudmyla, 58, which holds. child in his arms.
“It was very scary. It was very scary. The boy got scared and jumped out of bed,” he said. “How do they do this? How is this possible? They are not people, I don’t know what to call them. They scare children, disrupt their mental state.”
Moscow says its campaign to target infrastructure in Ukraine far from the front is intended to reduce its ability to fight. Kyiv said the airstrikes had no military purpose and aimed to harm and intimidate civilians, a war crime.
Ukrainian officials say Moscow fired six of its kinzhal hypersonic missiles, an unprecedented number, that Ukraine had no means of shooting down. It is believed that Russia has only a few dozen of the missiles, which President Vladimir Putin has often expressed in speeches as a weapon that NATO has no answer to.
Ukraine says the missiles destroyed the electricity supply to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest, cutting it off from the Ukrainian grid.
The plant, which has been held by Russia since its seizure early in the war, is close to the front lines and both sides have warned in the past of a potential for disaster there because of the fighting. Moscow says it is kept safe by diesel backup power.
“Everything is completely normal: plant specialists are working quite professionally, automation has started,” Renat Karchaa, an adviser to the CEO of the Russian state energy company Rosenergoatom, said on the TV channel of state Rossiya 24.
“There is no threat or danger of a nuclear incident. There is more than enough fuel and, if needed, it will be supplied to the plant.”
[1/7] SENSITIVE MATERIAL. THIS IMAGE MAY BE WITNESS OR REVENGE The bodies of people killed in a Russian military strike are seen at a public transit stop, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kherson, Ukraine March 9, 2023. Head of Ukraine’s Presidential Office Andriy Yermak via Telegram/Handout via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS – THIS IMAGE IS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY.
Kyiv, the Black Sea port of Odesa and the second-largest city Kharkiv were all hit as the missiles targeted a wide arc of targets, from Zhytomyr, Vynnytsia and Rivne in the west to in Dnipro and Poltava in central Ukraine, officials said.
“Unfortunately, a missile of the Kinzhal type hit an infrastructure object,” said Serhiy Popko, the head of the Kyiv regional military administration.
Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko reported explosions in the southwestern part of the capital. He said on Telegram that 40% of consumers in Kyiv are without heating due to power outages.
The governor of the Odesa region, Maksym Marchenko, said on Telegram that a mass missile attack hit an energy facility in the city, cutting off power. Residential areas were also hit.
The Governor of the Kharkiv region Oleh Synehubov said that the city and region were hit by 15 strikes, with targets including infrastructure.
UKRAINE FIGHTS IN BAKHMUT
On the battlefield, the week saw a marked change as Ukraine decided to stay and fight in Bakhmut, a small town that suffered the brunt of Russia’s winter offensive in its bloodiest fight in the war.
Moscow says it is strategically important as a step to secure the surrounding Donbas region, a major objective of the war. The West says the ruined city has little value and that Russian generals are sacrificing lives to give Putin his only victory since sending hundreds of thousands of reservists into the war at the end of last year.
Ukraine appeared likely to withdraw from Bakhmut, but now signaled a renewed determination to fight, with commanders saying they had inflicted enough damage on the Russian assault force to making the ongoing fight worthwhile.
“The importance of maintaining Bakhmut is constantly growing,” General Oleksandr Sirskiy, commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, said in statements released by the military on Thursday.
“Each day of the city’s defense allows us to gain time to prepare reserves and prepare for future offensive operations,” he said. “The enemy will lose the most ready and able to fight part of his army.”
Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of Russia’s Wagner private army that is leading the fight in Bakhmut, said that on Wednesday his forces took control of all the towns east of the Bakhmut river that flows through it.
About two-thirds of the city is on the west bank. Russian forces are advancing north and south of the city, to cut off the Ukrainian garrison but have not yet succeeded in closing the circle.
Moscow, which claims to annex a fifth of Ukraine, says it launched its “special military operation” a year ago to combat a security threat from relations of its neighbor to the West. Kyiv and the West called it a senseless war of aggression to conquer and conquer an independent state.
Reporting by Reuters bureaux, Writing by Peter Graff, Editing by Angus MacSwan
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