Russian missile strikes cut Ukrainian power, water supplies

Bloomberg

Ukraine warned of widespread blackouts after a massive wave of Russian missile attacks on Monday damaged power and water supplies across the country including in the capital Kyiv.

The Kremlin meanwhile warned that grain shipments would be “much riskier and more dangerous” after it pulled out of a deal allowing Ukrainian exports from Black Sea ports following an attack on Russian navy vessels in Crimea that Moscow blamed on the government in Kyiv. Ukraine hasn’t confirmed it carried out the assault.

“In circumstances where Russia is talking about the impossibility of ensuring the security of shipping in these areas, of course such a deal is hardly implementable and it takes on a different character,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call Monday. “We can’t guarantee it.”

Russian missiles and drones damaged infrastructure in 10 Ukrainian regions and hundreds of locations are without power in seven of them, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said on Telegram. The strikes left more than 80% of Kyiv residents without running water and 350,000 apartments lost electricity supply, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram. By evening, 40% still had no water supply and 270,000 apartments were without electricity, he said.

With his forces in retreat on the battlefield as the invasion stretches into a ninth month, Russian President Vladimir Putin has turned to repeated missile attacks on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure in recent weeks. Russian state media has celebrated the change of tactics as an attempt to force Ukraine to surrender by starving and freezing the population into submission as winter approaches. US President Joe Biden condemned the “utter brutality” of the strikes earlier this month and United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres called them “another unacceptable escalation of the war,” his spokesman said. European Council President Charles Michel said the Russian attacks were “war crimes.”

“Instead of fighting on the battlefield, Russia fights civilians,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Twitter after the latest attacks. “Russia does this because it still has the missiles and the will to kill Ukrainians.” The strikes came after Moscow accused Kyiv of the attack on its Black Sea fleet in Sevastopol with airborne and water-based drones on Saturday.

—Bloomberg