Russia has launched a barrage of missile and drone attacks targeting several Ukrainian regions and killing at least four people, a day after it carried out a “massive” attack on Ukraine’s power grid.
Two people were killed when a hotel was “wiped out” in the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih, regional officials said on Tuesday. Two more people died in drone attacks on the city of Zaporizhzhia, east of Kryvyi Rih.
The Kyiv region’s air defence systems were deployed several times overnight to repel missiles and drones targeting the capital, the regional military administration said on the Telegram messaging app.
Ukrainian air defences shot down about 15 drones and several missiles near the Ukrainian capital during Russia’s overnight attack, Serhiy Popko, head of Kyiv’s military administration, said on Tuesday morning.
“Everything that flew to the capital of Ukraine was destroyed,” he said on Telegram.
Ukraine shot down five missiles and 60 drones launched by Russia during the overnight attack, the Ukrainian air force said on Tuesday.
Russia launched 91 projectiles, including 10 missiles and 81 Iranian-designed attack drones, from several regions, it said in a social media post.
Ukraine’s air force also said it recorded the launch of several clusters of drones and the takeoff from Russian airfields of Tu-85 strategic bombers and MiG-31 supersonic interceptor aircraft.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a post on X, “We will undoubtedly respond to Russia for this and all other attacks. Crimes against humanity cannot go unpunished.” He said 16 people were wounded in the strikes.
On Monday, Russia launched more than 200 missiles and drones, killing at least seven people and damaging energy infrastructure. US President Joe Biden condemned the attacks as “outrageous”.
“I condemn, in the strongest possible terms, Russia’s continued war against Ukraine and its efforts to plunge the Ukrainian people into darkness,” he said in a statement.
“Let me be clear: Russia will never succeed in Ukraine, and the spirit of the Ukrainian people will never be broken.”
Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its strikes on Monday hit “all designated targets” in Ukraine’s critical energy infrastructure.
Zelenskyy, who held a news conference on Tuesday, said Ukraine planned to present a plan on how to end the war with Russia to Biden as well as Democratic and Republican presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.
He said the war would eventually end through dialogue but Kyiv had to be in a powerful position at a summit that it hopes to convene this year to advance its vision of peace.
The military had recently carried out the first successful test of a domestically produced ballistic missile, Zelenskyy said.
“There has been a positive test of the first Ukrainian ballistic missile. I congratulate our defence industry on this. I can’t share any more details about this missile,” he said at the news conference in Kyiv.
‘Act of retaliation’
Several Russian military bloggers, such as the pro-war collective under the name of Rybar, called the attacks an “act of retaliation” for Ukraine’s surprise incursion into Russia’s Kursk region on August 6.
The Kremlin said on Monday that there would be a response to Ukraine’s action in Kursk, but three weeks into the incursion, Kyiv has claimed further advances. While Russia said it keeps pummelling Ukrainian troops there, it has been unable to push them out.
On Tuesday, Ukraine’s army chief, Oleksandr Syrskyii, said his forces now control 1,294sq km (500sq miles) and 100 settlements in Kursk, adding that Ukraine has taken 594 Russian soldiers prisoner during the incursion.
Reporting from Kyiv, Al Jazeera’s Alex Gatopoulos called Monday’s strikes “the worst aerial assault Ukraine has had to endure in months, focusing on smashing its power and water grids. In its third year of war, these long-range Russian attacks show no sign of ending any time soon.”
“The defences have been on high alert now for more than 24 hours,” he said, adding that the attacks on Kyiv’s power sources have had a huge impact.
“There are parts of the capital still without power. We are seeing the effects here as the energy grid is trying to be repaired by Ukrainian crews,” Gatopoulos said.
The Kremlin denies targeting civilians in the war that President Vladimir Putin launched against Russia’s smaller neighbour with a full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Kryvyi Rih, Kyiv and central and eastern regions of Ukraine were under air raid alerts for most of the time overnight.
Two civilians may still be under the rubble of the hotel in Kryvyi Rih and five were injured in the attack, Serhiy Lisak, the governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, where Kryvyi Rih is located, said on Telegram.
Six shops, four high-rise buildings and eight cars were also damaged there, he added.
In Zaporizhzhia, two people were killed and four injured overnight, Ivan Fedorov, governor of the Zaporizhia region, said on Telegram.
“Such are the consequences of the overnight attack by Shaheds on Zaporizhia,” Fedorov said, referring to the Iranian-made kamikaze drones that Ukraine says Russia uses in its attacks.
IAEA chief visits Russia’s Kursk plant
Rafael Grossi, the head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog, visited the Kursk Nuclear Power Station, which Moscow said has been repeatedly attacked by Ukrainian forces that are just 40km (25 miles) away.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief said before his trip that the only way to assess the plant’s security and validate the information it was receiving was to visit the site, which is owned by Russia’s state nuclear corporation, Rosatom.
“The safety and security of nuclear facilities must, under no circumstances, be endangered,” Grossi said. “The safety and security of all nuclear power plants is of central and fundamental concern to the IAEA.”
The safety of nuclear power plants has repeatedly been endangered throughout the war. Moscow and Kyiv have repeatedly blamed each other for drone and artillery attacks on the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine.
At the site, Grossi said there was a risk of a “nuclear incident” and the situation was serious, telling reporters that the plant was fragile because it has no protective dome.
Meanwhile, Russian Telegram channels with links to the security services said earlier on Tuesday that Ukrainian troops had attacked the border although there was no immediate official confirmation of fighting there.
The governor of Russia’s Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said on Tuesday that the situation on the border with Ukraine was “difficult but under control”.
“There is information that the enemy is trying to break through the border of the Belgorod region,” Gladkov wrote on the Telegram.
“Our military is carrying out planned work. Please remain calm and trust only official sources of information.”
