On Thursday, hundreds of thousands of people in Ukraine were left without heat or electricity after a barrage of more than 80 Russian missiles and a lesser number of drone explosions struck residential structures and vital infrastructure, six people were killed in the attack.
A threat was also posed to Europe’s largest nuclear plant by the largest attack of this kind in three weeks, which cut it off from the electrical system for nearly half a day before being reconnected.
Russian Missiles Targeted Ukraine’s Power Sources
The most recent power outage at the Zaporizhzhia plant once more heightened the threat of a nuclear disaster because nuclear reactors require continuous power to run cooling systems in order to prevent a meltdown.
While the assaults targeted a large portion of the nation, including western Ukraine, which is far from the front lines, air raid sirens wailed throughout the night. The attack that occurred while many people were sleeping, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky, was an effort by Moscow to terrify Ukrainians once more.
The operations, according to the Russian Defense Ministry, were carried out in retribution for a recent entry of what Moscow claimed were Ukrainian saboteurs into the Bryansk region of western Russia. It asserted that it had successfully hit all of its intended targets, including railroads, manufacturing centers for weapons, and drone bases.
Ukraine rejected the assertion of an incursion and issued a warning that Moscow would exploit the claims as justification for escalating its own attacks.
Over half of Kyiv’s homes lacked heat, and many homes in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, also lacked water on a day when the outside temperature was forecast to drop to near freezing, according to local authorities.
In the Zhytomyr region of northwest Ukraine, about 150,000 homes were left without electricity. Due to downed electricity lines, there were unexpected outages in the southern port city of Odesa.
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Zelensky Slams Russia’s Act
“The occupants’ only option is to terrorize people. They have no other options. But, it won’t be of any assistance to them. They won’t be able to escape responsibility for anything they have done,” Zelensky stated in reference to the strikes that affected residential structures and infrastructure throughout ten districts.
Moscow acknowledged using dagger-shaped hypersonic Kinzhal missiles in the attack on Thursday. Officials from Ukraine claimed that they had never encountered so many of the weapons, which they are unable to shoot down.
According to Moscow-based defense and military specialist Pavel Felgenhauer, the Ukrainian power grid infrastructure was a deliberate target of Russian strikes.
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