Russian Airstrikes Pound Ukraine Cities Prompting Emergency Blackouts: Report

Multiple airstrikes by Russia jolted Ukrainian cities on Tuesday, prompting officials to declare emergency blackouts after assaults knocked out electricity and targeted residential structures in Kyiv.

According to the news agency Associated Press (AP), a Ukrainian air force spokesperson claimed Russia launched around 100 missiles across the country.

The aerial assault, which killed at least one person in a residential building in the capital, Kyiv, came after days of elation in Ukraine fueled by one of the country’s largest military victories in the almost nine-month war, the retaking of the southern city of Kherson last week, AP reported.

Strikes were reported in Lviv, Zhytomyr, Khmelnytskyi, and Rivne in the west, and Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, in the northeast. According to its mayor, Oleksandr Vilkul, many missile attacks also damaged Kryvyi Rih, the hometown of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, according to AP.

“Up to 20 more missiles can be expected (today). Stay in bomb shelters. We know what Russia is trying to achieve. It will fail,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated, according to the Kyiv Independent.

As its war losses increase, Russia has increasingly turned to target Ukraine’s electricity grid in recent months, evidently expecting to use the approaching winter as a weapon by putting people in the cold and dark.

Kyrylo Tymoshenko, a top Ukrainian official, called the situation “serious” and advised Ukrainians to “hang in there.” Power supplier DTEK declared emergency blackouts in the capital, and authorities announced similar measures elsewhere, AP reported.