Russia unleashes biggest attacks in months

KYIV (AP):

Russia retaliated on Monday for what it claimed was a Ukrainian terrorist attack on a critical bridge by unleashing its biggest and most widespread attacks against Ukraine in months. The lethal barrage against multiple cities smashed civilian targets, knocking out power and water, shattering buildings, and killing at least 11 people.

Ukraine’s Emergency Service said 64 people were wounded in the morning rush-hour attacks that Russia launched from the air, sea and land against at least 14 regions, spanning from Lviv in the west to Kharkiv in the east. Many of the attacks occurred far from the war’s frontlines.

Though Russia said missiles targeted military and energy facilities, some struck civilian areas while people were heading to work and school. One hit a playground in downtown Kyiv and another struck a university.

The attacks plunged much of the country into a blackout, depriving hundreds of thousands of people of electricity and creating a shortage so severe, Ukrainian authorities announced they would have to stop power exports to Europe starting on Tuesday. Power outages also often deprive residents of water, given the system’s reliance on electricity to run pumps and other equipment.

Andriy Yermak, a senior adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said the strikes had no “practical military sense” and that Russia’s goal was to cause a “humanitarian catastrophe”.

‘PRECISION WEAPONS’

Russian President Vladimir Putin said his forces used “precision weapons” to target key energy infrastructure and military command facilities in retaliation for Kyiv’s “terrorist” actions – a reference to Ukraine’s attempts to repel Moscow’s invasion forces, including an attack on Saturday on a key bridge between Russia and the annexed Crimean Peninsula that Putin called a “terrorist act” masterminded by Ukrainian special services.

Putin vowed a “tough” and “proportionate” response should Ukraine carry out further attacks that threaten Russia’s security. “No one should have any doubts about it,” he told Russia’s Security Council by video.

The Russian president has been under intense domestic pressure to take more aggressive action to stop a largely successful Ukrainian counteroffensive and to react forcefully to Saturday’s attack on the Kerch bridge, whose construction he used to cement his 2014 annexation of Crimea.

Putin’s increasingly frequent descriptions of Ukraine’s actions as terrorist could portend even more bold and draconian actions. But in Monday’s speech, Putin – whose partial troop mobilisation order last month triggered an exodus of hundreds of thousands of men of fighting age from Russia – stopped short of an expected escalation from what he calls a “special military operation” to a counterterrorism campaign or martial law. Zelenskyy has repeatedly called on world leaders to declare Russia a terrorist state because of its attacks on civilians and alleged war crimes.

Moscow’s war in Ukraine is approaching its eight-month mark, and the Kremlin has been reeling from humiliating battlefield setbacks in areas of eastern Ukraine it is trying to annex.