Russia launched a second major drone and missile bombardment of Ukraine in four days, officials said, aiming again at the power grid and apparently snubbing US-led peace efforts as the war approaches the four-year mark.
Russia fired almost 300 drones, 18 ballistic missiles and seven cruise missiles at eight regions overnight, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on social media.
One strike in the northeastern Kharkiv region killed four people at a mail depot, and several hundred thousand households were without power in the Kyiv region, Mr Zelenskiy said.
The daytime temperature in the capital was -12 degrees. The streets were covered with ice, and the city rumbled with the noise from generators.
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Four days earlier, Russia also sent hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles in a large-scale overnight attack and, for only the second time in the war, it used a powerful new hypersonic missile that struck western Ukraine in what appeared to be a clear warning to Kyiv’s Nato allies that it would not back down.
On Monday, the United States accused Russia of a “dangerous and inexplicable escalation” of the fighting, when the Trump administration was trying to advance peace negotiations.
Tammy Bruce, the US deputy ambassador to the United Nations, told an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council that Washington deplored “the staggering number of casualties” in the conflict and condemned Russia’s intensifying attacks on energy and other infrastructure.
Russia has sought to deny Ukrainian civilians heat and running water in the freezing winter months over the course of the war, hoping to wear down public resistance to Moscow’s full-scale invasion, which began on February 24th, 2022.
Ukrainian officials describe the strategy as “weaponising winter”.
In Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, the Russian attack also wounded 10 people, local authorities said.
In the southern city of Odesa, six people were wounded in the attack, Oleh Kiper, head of the regional military administration, said.
The strikes damaged energy infrastructure, a hospital, a preschool setting, an educational facility and a number of residential buildings, he said.
Mr Zelenskiy said that Ukraine was counting on quicker deliveries of agreed-upon air defence systems from the US and Europe, as well as new pledges of aid, to counter Russia’s latest onslaught.
Meanwhile, Russian air defences shot down 11 Ukrainian drones overnight, Russia’s ministry of defence said on Tuesday.
Seven were reportedly destroyed over Russia’s Rostov region, where governor Yuri Slyusar confirmed an attack on the coastal city of Taganrog.
Ukrainian officials have previously said that they have targeted Atlant Aero, a company in Taganrog that produces components for combat drones. The city also hosts the Beriev aircraft company. – AP
