Russia has launched a wave of cruise missiles at hydroelectric dams and other critical infrastructure across Ukraine on Monday morning, with explosions reported near the capital Kyiv and in at least 10 other cities and regions. Ukraine’s air command said it shot down 44 out of 50 enemy rockets. Video footage suggested that several missiles were intercepted in the skies around Kyiv, soon after 8am local time. Air raid sirens went off nationally, with citizens told to seek shelter.
The governor of Kyiv, Oleksiy Kuleba, said “massive shelling in the region” had damaged electricity and energy infrastructure. He said residents should expert emergency power cuts. He added: “There is currently one victim. We are clarifying the information.”
The cruise missiles were fired from Russian Tu-90 and T-60 aircraft flying north of the Caspian Sea and the Rostov region. They hit targets in Kyiv, Zaporizhzhia and Kharkiv oblasts, as well as in the areas of Mikolaiv, Lviv, Zhytomyr, Kirovohrad and Chernivtsi. In a statement on Facebook, Herman Halushchenko, Ukraine’s energy minister described Monday morning’s attacks as “barbaric” and said: “Electric substations, hydropower and heat generation facilities were hit by rockets.
Kyiv’s mayor, Vitaliy Klitschko, said 40 percent of the Ukrainian capital’s residents do not have water and 270,000 apartments are without power as of Monday evening.
Fragments from a Russian rocket, shot down by Ukrainian air defence, landed in Naslavcea, Moldova, damaging some houses and buildings, according to Moldova’s interior ministry.
Russia’s defence ministry has announced that the partial mobilisation, which had been used to send reinforcements into Ukraine as part of what Russia terms its “special military operation”, has ended. In a statement on behalf of defence minister Sergei Shoigu, the ministry said: “All activities related to conscription for military service by the military commissariats, together with the executive authorities of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation, of citizens in the reserve have been stopped.”
Twelve grain export ships have left from Ukraine today, despite Russia pulling out of the Turkey-UN brokered grain deal, according to Ukraine’s minister of infrastructure Oleksandr Kubrakov.
Russia called ship movements through the Black Sea security corridor “unacceptable”. “Under the current conditions, there can be no question of guaranteeing the security of any object in the area until the Ukrainian side accepts additional obligations not to use this route for military purposes,” Russia’s defence ministry said in a statement on Monday.
The UN disputed Moscow’s claim that a civilian cargo ship carrying Ukrainian grain may have been involved in a drone strike against Russia. UN aid chief Martin Griffiths said on Monday that no such ships were in the Black Sea’s designated security corridor at the time Russia said the attack had taken place.
Turkey will continue its efforts to support the Black Sea grain export deal despite Russian hesitancy, president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Monday after Russia suspended its participation in the initiative at the weekend.
France is working towards allowing Ukraine to export food supplies via land routes rather than by the Black Sea through Poland or Romania, the French farming minister Marc Fesneau said on Monday.
Norway’s military will be put on a higher level of alert to sharpen its response to the war in Ukraine, its prime minister Jonas Gahr Støre has announced.
Russia has dismissed reports that its agents hacked Liz Truss’s phone, and managed to gain access to sensitive information. When asked about the report, the Kremlin said there was little in British media that could be taken seriously.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy claimed his forces repelled a “fierce offensive” by Russian troops in the eastern Donetsk region. “Today they stopped the fierce offensive actions of the enemy,” Zelenskiy said in his Sunday night address. “The Russian attack was repelled.” The fiercest fighting in Donetsk region has been around the towns of Bakhmut and Avdiivka.
Russia’s Black Sea flagship vessel, the Admiral Makarov, was damaged and possibly disabled during an audacious Ukrainian drone attack over the weekend on the Crimean port of Sevastopol, according to an examination of video footage. Open-source investigators said the frigate was one of three Russian ships to have been hit on Saturday. A swarm of drones struck Russia’s navy at 4.20am. Aides to Zelenskiy hinted the country was behind the well-orchestrated raid, though his government has not claimed responsibility.
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, said he was “deeply concerned” by Russia’s suspension of the grain export deal and delayed his departure to attend the Arab League summit in Algiers for a day to try to revive it. Russia requested a meeting on Monday of the UN’s security council to discuss the issue. Guterres was engaged in “intense contacts” to get the agreement back and spoke to the EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell.
Kyiv’s infrastructure ministry said on Sunday that 218 vessels were now “effectively blocked” in its ports – 22 loaded and stuck at ports, 95 loaded and departed from ports, and 101 awaiting inspections.
Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, expressed “hope” that Joe Biden will recall the 1962 Cuban missile crisis when dealing with the war in Ukraine. In an interview for a Russian state television documentary on Sunday, Lavrov said there were “similarities” between the ongoing war in Ukraine and the 1962 confrontation. “I hope that in today’s situation, President Joe Biden will have more opportunities to understand who gives orders and how,” Lavrov said. “The difference is that in the distant 1962, Khrushchev and Kennedy found the strength to show responsibility and wisdom, and now we do not see such readiness on the part of Washington and its satellites,” he added.
