At seven o’clock, air raid alarms sounded in several Ukrainian regions, and shortly afterwards explosions were reported in a number of cities. According to Ukrainian authorities, most of the robots that were fired at the country must have been shot down by air defenses.
Local authorities around the country are reporting explosions and damaged power lines. Kyiv Mayor Vitaly Klyuchko says large parts of the city are without electricity and water, and that a building that supplies 350,000 apartments with electricity has been damaged, Reuters reports.
Zelensky: “Wear reflexes”
In his taped speech on Sunday night, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged Ukrainians to wear reflectors and be careful when moving out at night, as many cities are left in the dark following Russian attacks.
And during Monday the situation may have worsened. Ukraine’s Energy Minister Herman Halushtjchenko writes on Facebook that power outages are expected in the regions of Kyiv, Cherkasy, Zaporizhzhya, Kirovohrad, Kharkiv and Poltava, writes The Guardian.
Second attack
It has been less than a month since Russia last carried out a broad-front attack on Ukraine’s electricity supply. Then shortly after the Crimean Bridge, which connects the Russian-occupied Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea with the Russian mainland, was destroyed in an explosion that Russia blamed on Ukraine.
Today’s attacks come two days after Russia accused Ukraine of another attack, this time on Russia’s Black Sea fleet off the Crimean peninsula. Something Ukraine denied and said that instead it was Russia that itself caused an accident through poor weapons handling, reports Reuters.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba dismisses the Russian attacks as some kind of “response” to a Ukrainian attack.
– Instead of fighting on the battlefield, Russia targets civilians.
As of Monday morning, Russia had not commented on the attacks.