ANATOLII STEPANOV / AFP
Several Ukrainian cities were hit by bombardments this Thursday, March 9. (Kupyansk, Kharkiv region, March 7, 2023)
WAR IN UKRAINE – Cities from south to north, and from east to west, are under the fire of the bombardments. This Thursday, March 9, Russian forces carried out massive strikes across the whole of Ukraine, particularly in the Kharkiv and Odessa regions. In Lviv four people died, authorities said, and explosions were heard in kyiv, injuring several. At the same time, the battle for control of Bakhmout is raging.
Since October 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 freezing winter.
The Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, occupied by the Russian army in southern Ukraine, has been cut off from the Ukrainian electricity grid “because of rocket attacks” Russians, announced the operator Energoatom, in a press release.
Residential buildings affected
Before dawn Thursday, in Kharkiv, in the east of the country, “The enemy carried out about 15 strikes on the town and the region. Occupants are once again targeting essential facilities”, said on social networks the governor of the region, Oleg Synegubov. “ According to the first information, a private residential building in the Kharkiv region was hit »he added, announcing details “clear” on possible victims and on the extent of the damage.
Kharkiv Mayor Igor Terekhov explained that “energy infrastructure” of the city, the main one in the region, had been targeted and that there were ” problems “ electricity in some areas. 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 regional energy infrastructure and damaged residential buildings”speaking of a “massive missile strike”. The attack caused no deaths, according to the governor, but two people were injured. Of the “electricity supply restrictions” have also been put in place.
Frequent strikes
In kyiv, Mayor Vitali Klitschko reported several explosions in the south and then west of the city, where at least two people were injured. “Another explosion in the capital. Sviatochyne district. Help is on the spot. Cars are on fire in the courtyard of a residential building”, he posted on Telegram, adding that two injured had been hospitalized. Vitali Klitschko also wrote that about 15% of kyiv residents are without electricity due to preventive cuts.
In the West, Khmelnytskyi Region Governor Segiy Gamaliy urged residents to “stay in the shelters”car “the enemy strikes the essential infrastructure of the country”. The police reported explosions in Mykolaiv (south) and the media in the regions of Lviv (west) and Dnipro (east) in particular.
In mid-February, Moscow had already carried out an attack « massive » with dozens of missiles against energy production sites causing Ukraine to temporarily lose a significant part of its generation capacities.
The noose is tightening on Bakhmout
These large-scale strikes come the day after the announcement by the head of the Russian paramilitary organization Wagner, Evgeny Prigojine, of the capture of the eastern part of Bakhmout, a small town in eastern Ukraine at the heart of the fighting for months, despite a disputed strategic value.
Bakhmout could fall “in the next few days”NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told the press, adding however that “this does not necessarily reflect any turning point in the war”. Ukrainian officials, including President Volodymyr Zelensky himself, have warned, however, that the city’s fall could pave the way for Russian advances in the east.
These latest strikes follow a meeting on Wednesday of the 27 EU defense ministers in Stockholm, with their Ukrainian counterpart Oleksiï Reznikov, to negotiate a plan for the delivery of shells and ammunition to Kiev, which could be increased to two billion euros. euros.
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