Russia launched more than 170 missiles and drones at Ukraine's energy system on Wednesday, an ‘inhumane’ attack that Kiev said killed one person and left hundreds of thousands of homes without electricity or heating on Christmas Day.
Russian President Vladimir ‘Putin consciously chose Christmas for his attack. What could be more inhumane?’ his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky said on Telegram.
‘More than 50 missiles’ and a number of drones were shot down, but some strikes caused “power cuts in several regions”, he added.
The strikes targeted six regions, leaving at least one dead and six injured and causing widespread heating cuts in near-zero temperatures, according to the Ukrainian authorities.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer denounced ‘Putin's bloody and brutal war machine’ which is targeting Ukraine ‘without respite, even at Christmas’.
US President Joe Biden called the attack ‘outrageous’, stressing that its aim was ‘to cut off the Ukrainian people's access to heating and electricity during the winter and to jeopardise the security of their network’.
The attack killed an employee of a thermal power station in the central-eastern town of Dnipro, according to Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiï Kouleba.
The mayor of this large city reported heating problems in certain districts, and said that a hospital with around a hundred patients was going to be evacuated.
In Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city in the north-east and a frequent target, the attack left six people injured and half a million homes without electricity, heating or tap water, according to the region's governor, Oleg Synegoubov.
One of the cruise missiles, a Kh-59, fell in the courtyard of a private house in Kharkiv without exploding or causing any casualties, he added. Sappers are working on defusing it.
The Ukrainian air force said it had detected 78 Russian missiles and 106 drones, claiming to have shot down 59 and 54 respectively.
Since the start of its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russia has regularly bombed its neighbour's electricity network, plunging civilians into darkness.
On the Russian side, a Ukrainian strike killed four people and wounded several others on Wednesday in Lgov, a town in the Kursk border region, where Ukraine has been conducting an offensive since August, according to acting governor Alexander Khinchtein.
The DTEK group, Ukraine's main private energy supplier, said that its thermal power stations had been targeted by this thirteenth massive attack on the energy system this year and reported ‘serious damage’ to their equipment.
The national electricity company, Ukrenergo, announced supply restrictions across the country.
On Wednesday, one of the Russian missiles crossed Moldovan and Romanian airspace, Ukrainian diplomatic chief Andriï Sybiga said on the X social network.
Romania, a member of NATO, immediately stated that it had not detected any violation of its airspace by a Russian missile.
Moldova, for its part, ‘confirmed a violation’ even though the army's radars had not detected the missile, ‘Russia deliberately flying these devices at a very low altitude to avoid detection’, according to a presidential spokeswoman interviewed by AFP. President Maia Sandu expressed her solidarity with Ukraine.
Wednesday's attacks came on the day when Ukraine, for the second time in its modern history, celebrates Christmas Day on 25 December, as in the western world, and no longer on 7 January, which corresponds to 25 December in the old Julian calendar still used by the Russian Orthodox Church for religious holidays.
This change was made official by Kiev in the summer of 2023, to distinguish itself from Russia. Between 2017 and 2022, Ukraine had already celebrated the holiday on 25 December and 7 January.
To mark the festival, nearly 200 Ukrainians, adults and children wearing traditional costumes, marched through the centre of Kiev on Wednesday singing Christmas carols.
‘With this march, we are showing that we will not be discouraged’ by Russia and will defend “our independence”, Bogdana Kouïevoda, 30, told AFP.
‘This is a people's movement that neither the Russians nor Putin will stop’, added Volodymyr Gonsky, 58.
Ukraine and Russia have stepped up their strikes in recent months and want to do all they can to strengthen their positions before Donald Trump returns to the White House in January, with the American president-elect having said that he wanted to stop ‘the carnage’ as soon as he took office.
The Russian army, which has made rapid progress in eastern Ukraine in recent months, is trying to speed up its advance even further.
On Wednesday, the Ministry of Defence claimed responsibility for the capture of the village of Vidrodjennia, very close to Pokrovsk, a key logistical hub for the Ukrainian army.
With AFP.
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