Reuters
People seek refuge in a Kiev metro station amid heavy shelling.
Russia has launched its largest air strikes against Ukraine so far in the war, the head of Ukraine’s air force said.
Missiles and drones were fired into more than half of Ukraine on Monday, killing at least seven people and wounding dozens.
Power infrastructure was damaged, causing widespread power outages and leading to air raid warnings and evacuation orders across the country.
Russia acknowledged that it had launched attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, part of a long-term strategy, and said all targets had been hit.
Missile hits reservoir in Kiev Oblast, Ukraine
The barrage of missile and drone attacks began across the country overnight on Monday and continued into the morning.
Later that day, a Russian missile attack on civilian infrastructure in the eastern city of Krivoy Rof killed one woman and left five people missing, the local military chief, Oleksandr Birkul, said on Telegram.
Russia launched 127 missiles and 109 attack drones overnight and into Monday morning, Ukrainian Air Force Commander Mykola Oleschuk said in a Telegram post. Ukraine shot down 102 of the missiles and 99 drones, he said.
Oleschuk called the joint attack “the largest air raid in history.”
NATO member Poland said an “object” had entered its territory during the attack.
“Based on the flight trajectory and speed, it is definitely not a missile. We suspect it is most likely a drone,” Reuters quoted army spokesman Jacek Goliszewski as saying.
NATO spokesman Farah Dakhlallah condemned the attack on Ukraine and called Russia’s violation of NATO airspace “irresponsible and potentially dangerous”, NATO said.
Until now, the largest attack to date was said to have been the launch of 158 missiles and drones into Ukraine in December last year.
While the attack’s main target was energy infrastructure, it was also an attempt by Moscow to attack Ukraine’s other vital resource: its morale reserves.
Ukrainians are excited about their country’s troops’ recent success in penetrating deep into Russian territory in the Kursk region.
With Monday’s attack, Russia was seeking to jolt Ukrainian civilians back to reality and remind them, and politicians in Western capitals, that the Kremlin still has the upper hand in the war.
The message from Moscow was: make no mistake, Russia is always ready to inflict suffering on the Ukrainian people.
Dozens injured
Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhali earlier said Russia had targeted around 15 regions of Ukraine using weapons including drones, cruise missiles and hypersonic missiles.
“There are injuries and deaths,” Shmihal said on the social media app Telegram.
Dozens of people were injured and the following were killed:
Separate attacks in the Dnipropetrovsk region killed two men, aged 69 and 47, the region’s governor, Sergey Rysak, said. He added that others were injured, including a 14-year-old girl. In Zaporizhia, a man was killed when his home was hit, the governor said. The mayor of Lutsk said one person was killed when “infrastructure facilities” were hit. Five more people were wounded and water was cut off in most parts of the city, he added. In Izyum, Kharkiv region, a man was killed in a missile attack, the governor said. In Zhytomyr region in western Ukraine, missiles struck homes and infrastructure, killing a woman, the governor said. EPA
One of the damaged buildings was a house in the Zaporizhia district.
The attacks caused severe damage to infrastructure, causing power outages and reportedly cutting off water supplies in many cities, including Kyiv.
One of the remaining plants, a hydroelectric plant north of Kiev, was one of the latest targets, with damage still being assessed.
Russia has targeted Ukraine’s energy infrastructure since the early days of its full-scale invasion, which began in February 2022.
In recent months, the country has renewed attacks on its power grid, causing frequent blackouts across the country.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in June that Russia had destroyed half of Russia’s generating capacity since launching attacks on energy facilities in late March.
Ukraine buys electricity from the European Union, but it is not enough, so rolling blackouts are implemented almost daily across the country to protect critical needs such as hospitals and military installations.
The Russian Defense Ministry said the attacks targeted power and gas facilities and weapons storage facilities in Western countries.
“All designated targets were hit, a power outage occurred and rail transport of weapons and ammunition to the front line was disrupted,” the statement said.
EPA
For Kiev residents, the attack meant renewed evacuations and the first power outage in a month.
It’s been a year of bad news for Kiev on the battlefield, with Russia steadily gaining power in the eastern Donbas region.
There have been reports of mobilization problems and manpower shortages in Ukraine.
But after the Ukrainian army’s surprise invasion of Kursk, videos of soldiers raising the Ukrainian flag over occupied Russian villages were a huge morale booster in Ukraine.
And it demonstrated to the West that Kiev is still capable of carrying out complex, bold and, most importantly, successful attacks.
On Monday, Zelenskiy called on Western allies, including Britain, the United States and France, to change the rules and allow Ukraine to use its weapons to strike deep inside Russian territory.
Ukraine is permitted to use Western weapons to attack targets inside Russia, but not long-range weapons.
He added that the European Air Forces could “do much more to save lives” by working with Ukraine’s air defense forces.
Ukraine also attempted to attack an oil refinery in the city of Yaroslavl, northeast of Moscow, on Monday, the region’s governor said. No casualties or damage were reported.
The Russian Defense Ministry also said it had destroyed nine drones over Saratov Oblast, 560 miles (900 km) from the Ukrainian border.
