Nighttime Russian strikes massively hit Ukraine on Friday, killing at least five people and damaging energy infrastructure, and the Kremlin acknowledged that Russia was “in a state of war” after two years of imposed euphemisms. During the night from Thursday to Friday, large-scale Russian bombings targeted Ukraine, according to kyiv, mainly directed against the country’s energy network.
The Ukrainian Interior Ministry said two people were killed and at least eight injured in Khmelnytsky (West). Three people died in the city of Zaporizhia (central-east), according to the regional administration. In Moscow, the spokesperson for the Russian presidency, Dmitry Peskov, admitted: “we find ourselves in a state of war.”
Since the start of the invasion in February 2022, the Kremlin has repressed the use of the word “war” with fines and prison sentences. Russian officials have sometimes used this term regarding the situation in Ukraine, but in reference to the conflict that they accuse the West of waging against Russia. “Yes, it started as a special military operation, but as soon as… the collective West participated in all this alongside Ukraine, for us it became a war,” Dmitry said Peskov in an interview with the media “Argoumenty I Fakty”.
Line cut at Zaporizhia nuclear power plant
Russian forces launched more than “60 Shaheds (an Iranian-made explosive drone, editor’s note) and almost 90 missiles of different types during the night”, listed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on social networks, presenting his “condolences to the families ” the victims. According to Volodymyr Zelensky, the attacks targeted “power plants, high voltage lines, a hydroelectric dam, residences and even a trolleybus”.
These large-scale strikes led to power cuts in at least seven regions of the country and damaged “dozens” of installations, said the Ukrainian operator Ukrenergo. One of the two power lines supplying the Ukrainian nuclear power plant in Zaporizhia, occupied by Moscow, was cut by a bombing, Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko also announced. The situation is “extremely dangerous” because, if the last line stops working, “the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant will be on the verge of a new blackout”, warned Energoatom, the Ukrainian nuclear operator.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) later confirmed that the “emergency” line connected to the plant was still functioning. The Energy Minister called the nighttime bombing “the biggest attack on Ukraine’s energy industry in recent times.” The Ukrainian president told him that Russia had targeted Kharkiv and its region, as well as the regions of Zaporizhia, Sumy (North), Poltava and Dnipro (center), Odessa (South), Khmelnytsky, Vinnytsia and Frankivsk (West).
One dead in Belgorod
Volodymyr Zelensky was once again annoyed by the slowness of Western assistance, while American aid has been blocked for months due to political rivalries between Republicans and Democrats and that of the European Union has fallen significantly behind schedule . “Russian missiles are not late, unlike aid packages to our country. The Shaheds are not indecisive, unlike some politicians,” he quipped.
Russia had already launched a massive attack against kyiv at dawn on Thursday, the first since the beginning of February. Russian President Vladimir Putin previously promised he would take revenge for the increase in Ukrainian attacks in recent weeks that hit Russian territory, more than two years after he ordered the invasion of Ukraine.
The Kremlin has long assured Russians that the war would not affect their daily lives or the country’s territory, but as the Russian presidential election approaches in mid-March, these attacks have increased. One person was killed and several others injured Friday morning in a strike on the Russian region of Belgorod, bordering Ukraine, the local governor said.
The Russian security services (FSB) also announced on Friday that they had arrested seven people in Moscow accused of being linked to a group of pro-Ukraine fighters, responsible for armed incursions into Russia in recent days. Since last week, these groups have claimed armed incursions into the Russian border regions of Belgorod and Kursk, with Moscow’s army claiming to have repelled their assaults.