Russia hit the Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih again on Thursday with cruise missiles, after a devastating attack the day before destroyed a reservoir dam and caused massive flooding.
The latest attack on the hometown of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy caused serious damage. Two missiles hit the same depot on Wednesday, which was being repaired, Kryvyi Rih military administrator Oleksandr Vilkul said. He has asked the neighbors to stay in the shelters.
It came as Zelenskiy met with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who was in Kyiv on her third visit since Russia’s full-scale invasion.
Zelenskiy, in his late-night speech on Wednesday, described Russia’s tactics as the work of “weaknesses and scoundrels” who had fled the battlefield and were doing harm from “far away”.
On Thursday, he said the Kremlin was cynically targeting thousands of civilians to avenge its military defeats. “We are not talking about military infrastructure here. This is not a surprise to us,” he said, standing next to Von der Leyen at his residence at the Mariinsky Palace.
Russia has stepped up its attacks on electricity and utility providers following Ukraine’s shock counteroffensive in the country’s northeast. Within days, Ukrainian troops have retaken almost the entire Kharkiv region, including nearly 400 settlements.
Recent strikes in Moscow have cut off essential water and electricity. Earlier this week, Russian warplanes fired long-range missiles at a major power plant in Kharkiv, plunging the city and much of the surrounding area into darkness.
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Zelenskiy said he and the president of the European Commission discussed how to keep their citizens warm during the winter, at a time when Moscow has cut off gas to much of Europe. Ukraine is exporting electricity to the EU after connecting to its grid in March.
He also asked Germany, Italy, France, the US and Israel to provide Kyiv with modern air defense systems. Berlin has promised to send Iris-T air defense units, but they have not yet arrived. Zelenskiy said the technology was urgently needed to provide security to Ukrainians.
For the visit by Europe’s top official, the Ukrainian president unveiled a Walk of Fame-style plaque bearing Von der Leyen’s name outside his palace residence. He joins regular visitors Boris Johnson and Polish President Andrzej Duda in the ‘Alley of the Brave’. Air raid alarms sounded minutes before Thursday’s joint press conference.
Von der Leyen said the success of the Ukrainian counter-offensive around Kharkiv had “raised the spirits” of Zelenskiy’s “European friends”. Talks are ongoing about Kyiv joining the EU and the single market, he said, adding: “We are friends forever. We will be with you as long as it takes.”
In Kryvyi Rih, engineers had begun to repair some of the missile damage to the hydraulic system that had caused the Inhulets River to burst its banks. On Wednesday, eight cruise missiles hit the pumping station in what Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba described as a cowardly “act of terror”.
According to the governor of the Kharkiv region, Oleh Synyehubov, Russian soldiers retreating from the city of Balakliia blew up the local gas operator. They stole almost all of the company’s specialized vehicles, Synyehubov said, adding that Ukrainian utilities were working to restore supplies.
Russian units were reported to be digging in around the town of Svatove in Luhansk province following their withdrawal from neighboring Kharkiv region last week. They have been fortifying positions on the east bank of the Oskil River, about 10 miles from the recently liberated city of Izium.
Leonid Pasechnik, the head of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic, admitted that the “Ukrainian enemy” was now “practically at the borders”. He insisted there was absolutely no reason to panic, repeating the phrase twice.
The Ukrainian enemy is at the gates, according to Leonid Pasechnik, head of the “Luhansk People’s Republic”, but insists that “there is no reason to panic”
In fact, it’s so sure it bears repeating pic.twitter.com/5XRSpQ01N0
— Francis Scarr (@francis_scarr) September 15, 2022
The Institute for the Study of War reported that the Kremlin was trying to deflect blame for Russia’s embarrassing military mishaps from Vladimir Putin. Instead, they blamed “underinformed military advisers,” the US think tank said in its latest briefing.
He added: “Kremlin officials and state media propagandists are widely discussing the reasons for the Russian defeat in Kharkiv Oblast, a marked shift from their previous pattern of reporting exaggerated or fabricated Russian successes with limited detail “.