Russia launched a massive overnight bombardment of Ukraine with over 100 missiles and drones, authorities said Saturday, in the largest such attack on the country\u2019s critical infrastructure in more than three weeks.<\/p>\n
The barrage, which targeted energy facilities across Ukraine, involved 53 missiles of various types and 47 attack drones, the Ukrainian Air Force reported. It said 35 missiles and all but one of the drones were intercepted by air defences.<\/p>\n
However, the strikes still managed to inflict damage, with two thermal power plants hit, according to Ukrainian officials. The attacks disrupted power supplies in multiple regions as utility companies rushed to make emergency repairs.<\/p>\n
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned the Kremlin\u2019s tactics, accusing Moscow of trying to exploit perceived wavering resolve among some of Ukraine\u2019s Western backers by escalating its bombing campaign against civilian targets.<\/p>\n
The overnight attacks represented the largest bombardment of Ukraine\u2019s power grid and other critical infrastructure since a barrage on March 9th that time knocked out power to as many as 10 million homes and businesses. Russia has intermittently targeted Ukraine\u2019s energy facilities since last October in a strategy to try to freeze the civilian population into submission during winter.<\/p>\n
While Ukraine\u2019s air defences have become increasingly effective at intercepting Russian missiles and drones, the sustained bombardments have taken a toll, damaging power stations and other utilities. Emergency blackouts have become an unfortunate regularity across many regions.<\/p>\n
The Ukrainian military and Western analysts say Russia has depleted a significant portion of its stockpile of high-precision missiles over the past 15 months of war. Moscow has increasingly resorted to adapting air-defence missiles and drones for attacks against Ukrainian cities. Russia denies intentionally targeting civilians.<\/p>\n
Saturday night\u2019s bombardment came as Ukrainian forces continued probing Russian defences near the city of Bakhmut and other sections of the 600-mile frontline in eastern Ukraine. Both sides have taken heavy losses around Bakhmut, a symbolic battle that has raged for eight months.<\/p>\n
Moscow\u2019s campaign to capture territory across Ukraine\u2019s east appeared stalled amidst fierce resistance and its failure to muster an effective offensive force. Some Kremlin hardliners have increasingly criticized the Russian military for lack of progress.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The barrage, which targeted energy facilities across Ukraine, involved 53 missiles of various types and 47 attack drones, the Ukrainian Air Force reported.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":406,"featured_media":18858,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[9184,468,281,4531,11256,78,215],"class_list":["post-18857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-russia","tag-bakhmut","tag-kremlin","tag-moscow","tag-president-volodymyr-zelensky","tag-rdf","tag-russia","tag-ukraine"],"reading_time":"2 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/406"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}