Debris of an apartment building damaged in a Russian rocket attack in Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine, on Dec. 16.The Associated Press
Russia’s second mass aerial attack on Ukraine this week killed at least two civilians and knocked out utilities in an apparent attempt to ensure the country and its military operations will be short of power as Christmas approaches. Officials feared a second attack wave as night set in.
In Kyiv, air-raid alerts and sirens went off shortly after 8 a.m. Not long after, explosions could be heard in the capital’s southwestern and eastern districts.
It was not immediately clear whether the sounds were from the few rockets that managed to get through Ukrainian air defences and hit the city or from incoming missiles being intercepted and destroyed in flight. One video posted by an adviser to Ukraine’s Interior Minister purportedly showed a Russian drone falling out of the sky after being hit. The Associated Press reported that a member of Kyiv’s territorial defence unit shot down a cruise missile with a machine gun, a near-impossible task for any weapon other than air-defence missiles.
“By our calculations, it’s one of the most massive rocket strikes since the start of the full-scale war,” Mykhailo Shymanov, spokesman for the Kyiv City Military Administration, said on national TV.
He said more than 40 Russian rockets had been fired into and around Kyiv, of which 37 were intercepted and destroyed by air-defence missiles.
In a statement, General Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, said “the enemy launched 76 missiles at critical infrastructure facilities of Ukraine from the Caspian Sea and Black Sea this morning. Among them, there were 72 cruise missiles and four guided air-to-surface missiles.” He said 60 were shot down.
Ukrenergo, the state power company, declared a “system emergency” and reported a 50-per-cent loss of power within the country’s electricity system.
According to local media reports, Russian missiles hit the south central city of Kryvyi Rih. On Telegram, Valentyn Reznichenko, the head of the Dnipro region, said two people were killed when Russian rockets hit a residential building in the city. Five others were injured, including two children. Officials said more victims may be buried in the rubble.
Power outages were reported in various spots in the country’s eastern and southern regions. In the northeastern city of Kharkiv, the scene of heavy fighting earlier this year, the governor said critical infrastructure had been hit and the city was without power, heat or water.
In Kyiv, residents filled the metro stations after the air-raid alerts went off in the morning. A second alert was issued shortly after noon. In the afternoon, the metro system remained in “shelter” mode – the trains were not operating – in case of more attacks.
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The Friday attack came two days after Kyiv and the surrounding region were targeted with a wave of Iranian-made Shahed drones. Ukraine’s military said it shot down 13 of the “kamikaze” machines. Five buildings were damaged, probably from shrapnel.
In a statement Friday morning, Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin seemed determined to ensure that Ukraine freezes in the dark over the Christmas holiday.
“We may lose most electricity and gas supply as attacks on gas production enterprises continue,” he said. “There may be attacks on gas distribution networks, leading to severe limitations on gas transportation in some regions and large cities. This could mean that some cities could be left without heating in winter temperatures that can reach minus -20C.”
Both sides have rejected a Christmas ceasefire, raising the threat of power interruptions and blackouts over the holidays.
Ukraine is pleading for high-voltage transformers to replace those wrecked at thermal and hydroelectric power plants. The country reportedly needs 70 of the units, which can weigh more than 200 tonnes – the size of one and a half railway cars.
But the first of these transformers may not arrive until the spring, as their production and delivery is a long and expensive process. The government has also been trying to procure thousands of diesel generators to help bridge the power gap.
Eric Reguly