KYIV: Russia on Sunday pummelled Ukraine with a "massive" aerial barrage of missiles and drones, killing at least nine people across the country in the largest attack in months that Kyiv called "hellish." Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Moscow launched 120 missiles and almost 100 drones, targeting Kyiv as well as southern, central and far-western corners of the country. Civilians were killed in the Mykolaiv, Lviv, Kherson, Dnipropetrovsk and Odesa regions. "A hellish night," the spokesman for Ukraine's airforce Yuriy Ignat said on social media, saying Kyiv downed "144 targets".
"A massive attack on our country," Zelensky said. "Over the past week, the aggressor used nearly 140 missiles of various types, more than 900 guided aerial bombs and over 600 strike drones," he said, accusing Moscow of trying to "intimidate us with cold and blackouts". The attack came just two days after German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called Russian leader Vladimir Putin for the first time in almost two years. "This is war criminal Putin's true response to all those who called and visited him recently," Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga said after the attack. "We need peace through strength, not appeasement."
Kyiv had slammed Scholz for calling Putin, as have many in Germany itself. But on Sunday, Scholz reaffirmed his country's support for Ukraine, saying that no decision on ending the war would be taken without Kyiv. "Ukraine can count on us" and "no decision will be taken behind Ukraine's back", the chancellor said at Berlin airport before flying off to a G20 meeting in Rio de Janeiro. Ukraine has been on the backfoot militarily in eastern Ukraine, where Moscow's forces have made steady advances. Journalists heard explosions in the early morning in Kyiv and lose to Sloviansk in the Donetsk region.
Moscow, meanwhile, said it had hit all its targets, claiming it had targeted an "essential energy infrastructure supporting the Ukrainian military-industrial complex".
Ukraine's energy operator DTEK on Sunday announced emergency power cuts in the Kyiv region and two regions in the east. Russia's relentless aerial bombardment has destroyed half of Ukraine's energy production capacity, President Volodymyr Zelensky has said.
Earlier, Ukraine's Energy Minister German Galushchenko said on Telegram that Russian forces were "attacking electricity generation and transmission facilities throughout Ukraine". With the harsh Ukrainian winter fast approaching, the country is already suffering from major energy shortfalls, while its outmanned and outgunned forces have been steadily ceding ground to the Kremlin's troops for weeks. — AFP
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