Russia launched a “massive missile attack” on cities across Ukraine on Friday, cutting off power to millions and forces many to seek refuge in subway stations as Vladimir Putin’s forces try to freeze the population into submission.
Ukraine’s second city, Kharkiv, was said to be entirely without electricity, leaving residents without power or heating amid the freezing cold, as Russia continued to target infrastructure facilities in the war-torn country after several key battlefield losses in recent months.
Local authorities reported explosions in the capital, Kyiv, southern Kryvyi Rih and northeastern Kharkiv as authorities sounded air raid alarms across the country warning of a new devastating barrage of the Russian strikes.
Russia was “massively attacking”, said Oleksiy Kuleba, governor of the Kyiv region. Vitaly Kim, who is the governor of the Mykolaiv region in southern Ukraine, said as many as 60 Russian missiles had been spotted heading to Ukrainian air space.
“A part of them is already over northern Ukraine,” he wrote on Telegram.
“Do not ignore air raid alerts, remain in shelters,” Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the president’s office said on the messaging app.
In Kryvyi Rih in central Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky’s hometown, a Russian missile slammed into a residential building and destroyed its entrance.
Two people were killed, and at least five others were injured - including two children - and rushed to hospitals, said regional governor Valentyn Reznichenko.
The south-eastern city of Zaporizhzhia was struck by about 15 Russian missiles, regional governor Oleksandr Starukh said. He did not specify the exact location of the strikes but said infrastructure had been damaged.
Russia has carried out several waves of attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure since October, causing power outages across the country.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko reported explosions in at least four districts, urging residents to go to shelters.
“The attack on the capital continues,” he wrote on social media. Subway services in the capital were suspended, he said, as city residents flocked inside its tunnels deep underground to seek shelter.
Military officials in Kyiv later said Ukraine shot down 37 Russian missiles out of 40 in the area.
Ukrzaliznytsia, the national railway operator, said power was out in a number of stations in the eastern and central Kharkiv, Kirovohrad, Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk regions, due to damage to the energy infrastructure.
But trains continued to run by switching from electric power to steam-engine power, which had been readied as a backup.
Meanwhile Russia’s TASS state news agency said at least eight people had been killed and 23 wounded by Ukrainian shelling in the village of Lantrativka in the Russia-controlled Luhansk region in eastern Ukraine.
Ukrainian defence chiefs have predicted Russia will launch a new offensive early next year that could include a second attempt to take the capital Kyiv.
It could happen as soon as January, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, General Valery Zaluzhniy and General Oleksandr Syrskiy were quoted as saying in interviews with The Economist magazine.
The push could be launched from the eastern Donbas area, the south or neighbouring Belarus, and could include another ground assault on Kyiv, which Moscow failed to capture early in its invasion, the officials said.
