It was clear that the Kremlin was going to respond to the shipment of tanks by Germany and the United States, a decision that he called "extremely dangerous." Hours after US President Joe Biden confirmed the shipment of 31 Abrams tanks to Ukraine and Berlin did the same with 14 units of its Leopard 2 main battle tanks, Russia launched a major air missile offensive that blew up the alarms across the country. The provisional balance of the bombardments was at least eleven dead.
Air alerts for missile and drone strikes went off across the country last midnight. In the Kyiv region, the capital of the country, the sirens sounded for four hours and were reactivated at eight in the morning this Thursday.
Overnight, the Ukrainian air defense service shot down 47 cruise missiles out of 55 launched by Russia, 15 of which were heading for Kyiv, the head of Kyiv's military administration Serhii Popko said. However, the danger from air strikes has not ended. For this reason, the officer recommended "remaining in the shelters until the air siren goes off."
After several explosions, which were heard from hotels and homes, one of the shells hit the Dniprovskyi district of Kyiv, on the east side of the river that divides the city, leaving one dead and two injured, according to the mayor, Vitali Klichko. The impact site is located about seven kilometers from the center, according to army sources located at the scene. In a video of the incident, to which only official sources have access, a large burning hole is seen with about 15 or 20 people around, minutes after the impact.
Six Russian TU-95 fighter jets have taken off from Russia's Arctic region of Murmansk to fire long-range missiles, Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat said. The attacks caused a power outage that interrupted the daily activity of hotels, shops and homes at mid-morning in the capital. Only those establishments that have generators were able to continue working with a certain normality. At noon, the air alarm ceased in and around Kyiv and, little by little, normality returned.
In the previous days, people continued to walk down the street as normal despite the noise of the alarms, but this morning a crowd of people took refuge in the metro stations. There were also explosions in the Dnipro, Zaporizhia, Kherson and Vilnyansk regions of the Zaporizhia region, but figures on the number of dead and injured are still unknown.
Russia has attacked critical infrastructure with missiles and drones since October, causing blackouts throughout the winter. The attacks this morning affected the infrastructure of Odessa. "There is already information about the damage to two critical power infrastructure facilities in the Odessa region," the Odessa District Military Administration wrote on Telegram, adding that there were no casualties in those attacks.
DTEK, Ukraine's largest private power producer, said it was carrying out emergency power cuts in kyiv, the surrounding region and also in the Odessa and Dnipropetrovsk regions due to the danger of missile attacks. Other power producers said they were conducting emergency power cuts in other parts of Ukraine. Before the attack, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky praised US and German commitments to send tanks and urged the allies to provide large numbers of tanks quickly. Spain also confirmed this Wednesday that it would join a response coordinated by NATO for the shipment of weapons.
"The key now is speed and volumes. Speed in training our forces, speed in supplying tanks to Ukraine. Numbers in supporting tanks," Zelensky said in a late-night video on Wednesday.
“The Russians have old weapons, but they kill just the same, and they have a lot of troops. That is why the hand-to-hand battle in Bakhmut is being very tough," say sources close to the Ukrainian government. This Monday, a convoy of ten buses loaded with soldiers left Ukraine across the border with Poland to receive training on Leopard tanks. The same source, close to the government, assures that the military will receive training in a European country, such as Poland, although it does not confirm this for obvious security reasons.
