Russia and Ukraine: Massive Russian attack causes power outage in Ukraine – BBC News Arabic

The country’s energy company, Ukrynergo, said it would implement “limited measures” across Ukraine on Monday.

Saturday’s coordinated attack was the largest of its kind since early September, according to authorities and local media.

In total, about 120 missiles and 90 drones were launched, Zelensky said on Telegram. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sepia said “peaceful cities, sleeping civilians” and “vital infrastructure” were being targeted.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said it hit all its targets, saying its attack was on “essential energy infrastructure supporting Ukraine’s military-industrial complex.” “

“Russian terrorists again want to scare us with cold and lack of electricity,” said President Zelensky.

Of course, anything that tries to remove factories that make energy weapons will also harm civilians, indirectly, due to frequent power and water outages, and directly , with falling missiles or missile fragments.

The Governor of Odessa Region, Oleh Kiper, said that there was also a break in the supply of heat and water, although the latter were gradually being restored.

Hospitals and other critical infrastructure ran using generators.

He also said that the city of Mykolaiv was also bombed to the east. The head of the area, Vitaly Kim, told the BBC that people there are resilient despite the fact that they are regularly attacked.

He said, “People are in good shape and they want to protect themselves. We don’t want to lose our homes.”

In Kiev, fragments of captured missiles and drones fell in several places, but no casualties were reported.

DTEK said in a statement that the attack was the eighth major attack targeting energy facilities in Ukraine this year, adding that its stations had been attacked more than 190 times since Russia’s full-scale offensive began. Ukraine in February 2022.

Ukrainian officials fear the latest strike is a sign of another coordinated Russian effort to drain the power grid as winter approaches.

Having already endured two and a half winters from Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, Ukrainians are preparing for another one.

Poland, Ukraine’s neighbor to the west, sent fighter jets to patrol its airspace as a security precaution.

“As a result of a large-scale attack by Russia, which is carrying out strikes using cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and drones against sites located, among other places, in the western part of Ukraine, operations carried out by Polish and friendly aircraft have begun,” said the Polish Operational Command. said.

Hungary, which is close to Ukraine and Poland, was also on alert after drone attacks hit the westernmost Carpathian region, about 20 kilometers from the Hungarian border.

The country’s defense minister said that “the situation is always being monitored.” “

These latest attacks come as Ukraine and Russia continue to try to anticipate how US President Donald Trump will act once he will take office in January.

Trump has repeatedly said that his priority is to end the war and what he described as a drain on US resources in the form of military aid to Kiev. He didn’t say how.

The United States was the largest supplier of arms to Ukraine. Between the start of the war and the end of June 2024, it delivered or promised to deliver weapons and equipment worth $55.5 billion, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a German research group.

There are concerns in Kiev that it may be under pressure to end the war which could favor Russia’s advance – Moscow controls a large area of ​​Ukraine’s territory.

Zelensky said he was sure the war with Russia would “end faster” than it would have if not for Trump’s new presidency.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian state media recently that there were “positive” signs from the incoming US administration. But Russia denied making a phone call in which Donald Trump had warned the Russian president not to escalate the war.

For all the talk of potential changes when Trump returns to the White House, Sunday’s attacks suggest that, for now at least, the real realities of war have not changed.

Meanwhile, the German Chancellor, another ally of Ukraine, defended his phone call with Putin on Friday, who criticized Kiev as an attempt at appeasement.

“It was important for me to tell him,” Olaf Schulz said Sunday [بوتين] “He should not have to rely on support from Germany, Europe and many others in the world to withdraw Ukraine, but it is now up to him to ensure that the war ends. “

He said that the President of Russia did not mention any movement in his opinion on the war.