The Ukrainian authorities had been warning for days that Russia was planning more strikes on the electrical grid ahead of New Year holidays - by Andrew E. Kramer for The New York Times – 30.12.22
KYIV, Ukraine — A swarm of drones and a volley of cruise missiles rocked towns and cities across Ukraine on Thursday, the biggest assault in weeks and the latest in a wave of ever more sophisticated aerial duels pitting Russia’s evolving tactics against Ukraine’s growing arsenal of air defense weapons.
At dawn in Kyiv, the capital, puffy contrails from missiles or air defense weapons lingered in the sky and fragments from successful intercepts rained down on a playground and on private homes.
Russia, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said in a statement, had been “saving one of the most massive missile attacks since the beginning of the full-scale invasion for the last days of the year.” Ukraine’s air defenses were at times overwhelmed.
Iranian-made exploding drones, which Russia began acquiring last summer, were launched in a first wave, apparently to bog down air defenses before the cruise missile strikes, the Ukrainian air force said. It said its defense forces had shot down 54 of 69 cruise missiles and had also knocked out drones.
The attack appeared likely to prompt new calls from Ukrainian officials for more Western air-defense systems, given that the growing arsenal of advanced weapons sent by Kyiv’s allies has failed to stop Moscow’s debilitating attacks on energy infrastructure that have caused widespread power outages as the country faces freezing winter temperatures.
After the strikes, Russia’s Defense Ministry released a picture on its official channel on Telegram, the social messaging app, showing a Kalibr cruise missile and a message: “Kalibrs will never run out.”
The new wave of strikes frustrated anew the work of crews trying to repair Ukraine’s power grid and raised the prospect that many Ukrainians would be without power for the New Year holidays.
For three months, Russia has launched volleys of cruise missiles and drones at Ukraine’s energy grid, in what military analysts say is a strategy of plunging the country into cold and darkness to lower morale.
The latest bombardment killed two people and wounded four others, including a 14-year-old girl hit by falling debris, the authorities said.
Air-defense weapons shot down four of six cruise missiles near the city of Lviv, in western Ukraine, but the two that got through hit power plants, knocking out 90 percent of the city’s electricity, the mayor, Andriy Sadovoi, said in an interview.
“Putin uses the scenario of demoralizing the Ukrainian people,” Mr. Sadovoi said.
But Lviv will hold out, he said. Diesel generators switched on in hospitals so operations could continue, he said, and the city is well stocked with firewood for emergency heating shelters.
Amid the barrage, two provinces — Dnipropetrovsk, in central Ukraine, and Odesa in the south — pre-emptively switched off electricity to limit damage in case the grid short-circuited in a strike, a utility company said in a statement. In Kyiv, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the strikes had left 40 percent of the capital without electricity.
Late Thursday, there were reports of more Iranian drones flying over Kyiv and Ukraine’s air defenses being engaged. A message on the Kyiv city military administration’s Telegram account warned that air raid sirens were activated and people should go to shelters. “It is important to stay in shelters and safe places now,” Oleksiy Kuleba, the head of the Kyiv regional military administration, wrote on Telegram.
Oleksandr Chubko and Ivan Nechepurenko contributed reporting.
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Kyiv – A funeral for soldier killed in the Chernihiv region. Credit: Nicole Tung for the New York Times.
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