Russian forces carried out massive strikes across Ukraine on Thursday (March 9th), including in the Kharkiv and Odessa regions, and explosions were heard in Kiev, local authorities said, as the battle for Bakhmout’s control is raging.
Since October 2022 and after several military setbacks on the ground, Russia has been bombarding key energy facilities in Ukraine with missiles and drones, each time plunging millions of people into darkness and cold in the middle of winter. glacial.
Russian strikes: four dead in the Lviv region
A Russian strike killed at least four civilians – two men and two women – in the Ukrainian region of Lviv (west) early Thursday morning, announced the regional governor, in the midst of a new wave of bombardments across Ukraine. A Russian missile fell on a residential area in Zolochiv district, destroying three houses, Governor Maksym Kozytsky said on Telegram. “The debris is being cleared, other people may be below,” he added.
A new explosion in kyiv
In Kiev this time, a new explosion sounded this Thursday morning in the west of the city, where at least two people were injured, said the mayor of the capital, in the midst of a wave of Russian strikes. “Another explosion in the capital. Sviatochyne district. Rescuers are on the spot. Cars are on fire in the courtyard of a residential building,” Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram, adding that two people from this district had been killed. injured and hospitalized.
Earlier, explosions had already sounded on kyiv this Thursday morning, reported Vitali Klitschko, following a wave of massive strikes across the country. “Explosions in the Holosiivskyi district of the capital. All services are on site,” Vitali Klitschko said on social media, referring to a district in the south of the city.
Forty percent of users in kyiv are deprived of heating this Thursday morning following massive Russian strikes on Ukraine, said the military administration of the capital. “Emergency power cuts do not provide heating for 40% of kyiv consumers,” the administration said on Telegram.
Russian strikes also carried out in Kharkiv and Odessa
Before dawn on Thursday, in Kharkiv, in the east of the country, “the enemy carried out about 15 strikes on the city and the region. The occupiers once again target essential installations”, said on social networks the governor of the region, Oleg Synegubov. “According to initial information, a private residential building in the Kharkiv region was hit,” he added, announcing “clear” details of possible victims and the extent of the damage.
The mayor of Kharkiv, Igor Terekhov, explained that the “energy infrastructure” of the city, the main one in the region, had been targeted and that there were “problems” with electricity in certain districts. Energy facilities in Kharkiv had already been hit by Russian strikes in mid-January.
The governor of the Odessa region (south), Maksym Marchneko, for his part reported that “missiles hit the regional energy infrastructure and damaged residential buildings”, speaking of a “massive missile strike”. The attack, which came just over a year after the invasion by Russian troops on February 24, 2022, left two injured, according to a spokesman for local relief workers. Electricity had been cut “as a precaution” in the city, said a spokesman for the regional administration, Sergiy Bratchuk. In the west, Khmelnytskyi Region Governor Segiy Gamaliy urged residents to “stay in shelters” as “the enemy is hitting critical infrastructure in the country”.
Zaporizhia nuclear power plant cut off from the electricity grid
The Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, occupied by the Russian army in southern Ukraine, was cut off from the Ukrainian electricity network after a Russian strike, the Ukrainian nuclear operator said on Thursday, warning of a risk of accident. “The last line of communication between the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and the Ukrainian power grid has been cut due to Russian rocket attacks,” Energatom said in a statement.
This announcement comes as a new wave of Russian strikes hit several cities and infrastructure in Ukraine on Thursday morning. “Currently, the central […] went into blackout mode for the sixth time since the occupation, the reactors of units 5 and 6 were put (shutdown) cold”, added Energatom.
The operator specifies that 18 emergency diesel generators have been switched on to ensure the minimum power supply to the plant. “They have enough fuel for ten days. The countdown has begun,” said Energatom. “If it is not possible to renew the external power supply of the plant, an accident with radioactive consequences for the whole world could take place”, warns the operator. The Russian army occupied this huge nuclear complex in southern Ukraine on March 4, 2022, nine days after the start of its invasion.
Wagner claims capture of part of Bakhmout
The large-scale strikes come the day after the announcement by the boss of the Russian paramilitary organization Wagner, Evguéni Prigojine, of the capture of the eastern part of Bakhmout. This city, at the heart of fighting for months in eastern Ukraine, could fall “in the coming days”, according to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. “Wagner units have taken the entire eastern part of Bakhmout, all that is east of the Bakhmoutka river” crossing the small town of Donbass, said in an audio message Yevgeny Prigojine.
However, in Chassiv Iar, a little further west, Ukrainian howitzers fired tirelessly on Russian positions and tanks brought new troops to the front. According to the director of American intelligence Avril Haines, the big Russian offensive which was feared a few weeks ago has fizzled, and the Kremlin – except to engage in a new massive mobilization and obtain from a third party massive arms deliveries – seems to have to content itself with lowered targets.
Zelensky invites American Republican Kevin McCarthy
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has invited Republican Kevin McCarthy, leader of the House of Representatives in the United States Congress, to visit Kiev, as protests begin to mount among American conservatives over the aid given to Ukraine.
“Kevin McCarthy has to come here to see how we work, what’s going on, what the war has done, what people are fighting now and who they’re fighting. And only after that do you form an opinion,” said Volodymyr Zelensky . He was speaking during an interview with CNN.
At the head of the new Republican majority in the House, Kevin McCarthy is as such the third most important figure in American politics after the president and the vice-president. “I think the ‘speaker’ McCarthy has never visited kyiv or Ukraine and I think that might help him,” the Ukrainian president added. But the Republican boss of the House of Representatives, laboriously elected in January 2023, told CNN he did not need to go to Ukraine to understand the situation. He can, in his position, hinder President Joe Biden’s massive aid program for Ukraine to fight Russia.