Russia launched a huge wave of missile strikes across Ukraine on Thursday night, killing at least six civilians, Reuters reported. The attack also knocked out electricity and forced a nuclear power plant off the grid. President Volodymyr Zelensky said infrastructure and residential buildings in 10 regions were hit.
The massive volley of missile strikes shattered the longest period of comparative calm since Moscow began a campaign to attack Ukraine's civilian infrastructure five months ago.
"It’s been a difficult night," President Volodymyr Zelensky said Thursday in a Facebook message. "The enemy fired 81 missiles in an attempt to intimidate Ukrainians again, returning to their miserable tactics. The occupiers can only terrorize civilians. That's all they can do. But it won’t help them. They won’t avoid responsibility for everything they have done," Zelensky said.
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Russia's Defence Ministry said it used hypersonic missiles during its latest attack on Ukraine, BBC reported. In a statement on Telegram, Russia said Kinzhal hypersonic missile systems were launched "in retaliation" for an alleged Ukrainian incursion in the Russian border region of Bryansk last month -- a claim Kyiv has denied.
Ukrainian military said a total of 81 missiles were used, CNN reported. "The attack is really large-scale and for the first time using such different types of missiles. We see that this time as many as six Kinzhal were used. This is an attack like I don’t remember seeing before. So far, we have no capabilities to counter these weapons," Yurii Ihnat, spokesman for the Air Force Command of Ukraine, said on Ukrainian television.
According to emergency services, a missile that demolished a village home in the western Lviv area killed at least five persons. Drone footage from the area, which was not near to any military battlefield, showed a charred home surrounded by severaly damaged buildings.
In the central Dnipro area, another person was reportedly killed by the missiles. At Kherson, three people were reportedly killed by artillery.
In Kyiv, an air raid alert lasted for almost seven hours overnight into Thursday.
Private electricity operator DTEK reported that three of its power stations were hit in the missile strikes, leading to emergency power cuts in the Kyiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk and Odesa regions, AP reported.
The strikes left almost half of consumers in Kyiv without heating as temperatures hovered around 9 degrees C. Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, was left without running water, heating, trams and trolleybuses after 15 missiles hit the region, mayor Ihor Terekhov said.
In southern Ukraine, the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, which is occupied by Russian forces, lost power as a result of the missile attacks, according to nuclear state operator Energoatom, AP reported. It is the sixth time that Europe’s largest nuclear plant has been in a state of blackout since it was taken over by Russia months ago.
Residents in Kyiv, the capital, were woken by the blasts.
Liudmyla, 58, holding a toddler in her arms said, "I heard a very loud explosion, very loud. We quickly jumped out of bed and saw one car on fire. Then the other cars caught on fire as well. The glass shattered on the balconies and windows. It's very frightening. Very frightening. The child got scared and jumped out of bed."
"How can they do this? How is this possible? They are not humans, I don't know what to call them. They are frightening the children, their mental state will be disrupted," she told Reuters.