It has been several weeks since Ukraine has suffered such a large-scale bombing campaign. Russia struck deep into Ukrainian territory, targeting “important energy infrastructure” as well as “airfields,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement on Monday, August 26. 15 Ukrainian regions were targeted in this attack, carried out using “more than 100 missiles of various types and about a hundred [drones iraniens] Shahed,” according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Ukraine currently has 4 dead and 20 injured, according to figures released by AFP.
The Russian strikes come two days after Ukraine’s Independence Day, when in early August kyiv’s armed forces – although struggling in Donbass, where they are struggling to slow the advance of the Russian army near the town of Pokrovsk – launched an offensive on Russian territory in the Kursk Oblast. The suddenness of the attack surprised both the Russian enemy and the international scene. In a few days, the Ukrainian army occupied nearly 1,200 km² of territory. It had been since World War II that Russia had not experienced a foreign army intervention on its territory.
Today’s Russian strikes have resulted in power outages – carried out by state energy provider Ukrenergo to stabilise the grid – and also water cuts, according to Reuters, the US news agency. “All trains were temporarily stopped due to power outages after a large-scale enemy attack,” explained Ukrzaliznytsiathe national railway operator.
In kyiv, AFP journalists saw residents taking refuge in underground metro stations or covered walkways. “It’s very, very hard,” Svitlana Kravchenko, 51, told them, meeting with about a hundred other people in a metro station in the city center. “No one thought that Russia, which was once our sister, would cause us so much grief,” she lamented, expressing concern that she would end up “getting used to fear.”
Ukraine expects more from the West
Faced with the threat of these deep strikes, President Zelensky said on Telegram that Ukraine could “do much more to protect lives, if the air force of our European neighbors worked together with our F-16s.” [NDLR : avions de chasse de conception américaine] and with our anti-aircraft defenses.” For their part, the Ukrainian Prime Minister and the Chief of Staff of the Presidency both also reiterated the importance of being able to use Western long-range weapons against Russia.
kyiv’s partners are refusing for the time being. “It is necessary,” Andriy Yermak, the head of the presidential office, insisted on Telegram, explaining that this “will accelerate the end of Russian terror.” Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said onr Facebook And on X that “Ukraine [préparait] weapons of its own production” in response to Russian bombings. On Sunday, a strike attributed to the Russian military also hit a Reuters crew at its hotel in Kramatorsk, in eastern Ukraine, killing a security adviser and wounding two journalists, according to the news agency.
Ukraine has already urged its European allies to establish a no-fly zone in the west of its territory via defense systems deployed in neighboring Poland and Romania, to create a sanctuary where industries, energy infrastructure and civilian populations would be protected. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said in late May that there was “no legal, security or moral argument that would prevent our partners from shooting down Russian missiles over Ukraine from their territory,” without specifying the terms of this scenario.
For its part, Russia does not prevent itself from penetrating NATO and European Union airspace. The Polish army announced that a “flying device”, probably a drone, had entered Polish territory – during the salvo of Russian strikes in Ukraine – before disappearing from radar. This is a new case of violation of Polish airspace since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the last one having been recorded last December.