(LONDON) — Russia launched a deadly large-scale attack across Ukraine on Monday, sending drones and cruise and ballistic missiles toward at least 15 regions, Ukrainian officials said.
The strikes were among the largest such aerial attacks since the war began in 2022, with Russia using at least 127 missiles and 109 drones in an attack that lasted over eight hours, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
“And like most previous Russia strikes, this one is just as dastardly, targeting critical civilian infrastructure,” Zelenskyy said in Ukrainian, adding later that Russian President Vladimir Putin “can only do what the world allows him to do.”
Critical infrastructure, the energy sector and railroads were targeted in the attack, Zelenskyy said.
“What is happening now in Kyiv is unbelievable horror. Pray for us,” Kira Rudick, a member of the Ukrainian Parliament, said on social media.
She later added, “What happened today? Nightmare.”
At least seven people were killed and at least 47 others injured as a result of the attacks across Ukraine, the Ukrainian State Emergency Service said in a post on Telegram on Monday.
Out of the 47 people injured, four of them were children, the Ukrainian State Emergency Service said.
Following the large-scale attack, additional casualties were reported late Monday night after local officials said a missile struck civilian infrastructure in Kryvyi Rih in central Ukraine. A woman was killed and four people injured in the strike, according to city officials, as the rescue operation was underway.
Some residents in Kyiv, the capital, took shelter in the city’s subways as Russia launched its “massive” attack across the country, Olga Stefanishyna, deputy prime minister, said on social media. She included a local news video that appeared to show throngs of people standing along a train platform.
Kyiv was among the 15 areas throughout Ukraine struck in the attack, which began early in the morning and continued into the afternoon, lasting for at least 12 hours, officials said.
“Attack UAVs are attacking Kyiv from various directions right now,” the Kyiv City Military Administration said, referring to uncrewed aerial vehicles, or drones.
The administration added, “Air defense soldiers have already destroyed a total of about one-and-a-half dozen enemy drones that were headed for the capital. The air alert in Kyiv has been going on for more than 6 hours.”
In a statement on Monday, President Joe Biden condemned the attacks.
“I condemn, in the strongest possible terms, Russia’s continued war against Ukraine and its efforts to plunge the Ukrainian people into darkness. Let me be clear: Russia will never succeed in Ukraine, and the spirit of the Ukrainian people will never be broken,” he said in his statement.
Biden said he is “surging energy equipment to Ukraine to repair its systems and strengthen the resilience of Ukraine’s energy grid.”
The strikes followed Ukraine’s Independence Day celebrations on Saturday. Russia had on Saturday struck several pieces of Ukrainian infrastructure, knocking out power for many. The U.S. Embassy in Kyiv was helping restore power on Sunday after Russia’s “barbaric attacks,” according to the U.S. State Department’s official Russian social media accounts.
Russia in its Monday attack also targeted energy infrastructure in an attempt to “terrorize all of Ukraine” and to “deprive Ukrainians of electricity,” the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the country’s parliament, said. Engineers were working midmorning to restore power to many, the parliament said.
“The desire to destroy our energy will cost the Russians dearly — their infrastructure,” Andrii Yermak, an adviser to Zelenskyy, said in Ukrainian on the messaging app Telegram on Monday.
The White House condemned Russia’s massive assault, calling it a “classic play” by Putin.
“This is a classic play out of the playbook for Vladimir Putin to go after energy infrastructure, particularly as he knows the weather’s about to turn, and people are going to need heat and power a lot more as things get colder in Ukraine,” National Security communications adviser John Kirby told reporters Monday afternoon.
“We condemn in the strongest possible terms, Russia’s continued war against Ukraine and its efforts to plunge the Ukrainian people into darkness as the fall here sits upon us, and as winter approaches,” Kirby added.
The Russian Defense Ministry said on Monday it had carried out a “massive strike with long-range precision weapons,” including some that were launched from the sea. Russian drones were sent to strike “critical energy infrastructure facilities that supported the operation of the military-industrial complex of Ukraine,” the ministry said in a statement.
“All designated targets were hit,” the ministry said.
Several fatalities were reported after strikes hit homes in the Dnipropetrovsk region and an apartment block in the Lutsk city center, officials said.
Rescue services extinguished 22 fires across the country, according to the Ukrainian State Emergency Service.
After the strikes, blackouts started in multiple regions in Ukraine, including Kyiv, Volyn, Rivne, Odesa and Chernihiv, among others, according to local authorities. In the Zhytomyr region, water supply has stopped due to power outages, local media reported.
Public electric transportation operations stopped in Odesa due to power supply disruptions, local authorities said.
There were “no significant damages” at the Kyiv Hydroelectric Power Plant, which was targeted in Russia’s attack, the Kyiv Regional Military Administration, Ruslan Kravchenko, said.
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