2024-04-16 19:17:26
Russian attacks kill at least 6 in eastern and southern Ukraine… and Kiev brings down 9 marches
Russian forces targeted eastern and southern Ukraine with attacks that killed at least 6 people. At least two people were killed in an air strike on the village of Lukyantsi, after four people were killed in the city of Seversk in the Kharkiv region in the east, the regional governor said, bringing the death toll to at least six.
The Ukrainian Air Force announced, in a statement via the Telegram application, on Tuesday, that 9 Shahed 131-136 drones launched by Russia were destroyed on the night of Monday – Tuesday, by mobile firing groups of the Ukrainian Air Force and Defense Forces in areas Kherson, Mykolaiv, Khmelnytsky, Poltava, Cherkasy and Dnipropetrovsk, according to the Ukrainian national news agency “Ukrinform”. The statement said, “The enemy attacked Ukraine using several groups of Shahed drones.”
The military governor of the Donetsk region, Vadim Velashkin, called on the remaining residents of Siversk to flee the city, which is located about 10 kilometers west of the front line, on Telegram. The population of Siversk was more than 10 thousand people before the war.
Smoke rises following the Russian attacks on Kharkiv (EPA)
Four other people were also injured in the Siversk attack, regional military official Oleh Sinyhopov said on Telegram. Initial unconfirmed reports said the guided bomb hit a school building.
To the south, Russian units bombed the city of Slovyansk, according to Ukrainian reports. Two multi-storey residential buildings were severely damaged by the impact of a short-range Grom missile. There was initially no information available about any possible injuries. Russia has declared the entire Donetsk region part of its territory, but it has only partial control there.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is seeking to claim the Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhya and Kherson provinces that were annexed but are not entirely under Russia’s control.
Moscow also controls the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which it annexed in violation of international law in 2014.
*Zelensky asks for support
As Kiev’s forces seek to repel Russia’s attacks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky renewed his call for active support from the West, citing Western assistance to Israel against Iran’s attacks.
“It has now become clear that it is not possible to protect all of Ukraine’s facilities from attacks,” Zelensky said on Telegram on Monday after a meeting with the Stavka, the Ukrainian military leadership. But the intensity of the Russian attacks requires greater unity.”
Zelensky says that “it has now become clear that it is not possible to protect all of Ukraine’s facilities from attacks” (EPA)
Zelensky said, as quoted by the German Agency: “By defending Israel, the free world showed that unity is not only possible, but also 100 percent effective.” He added: “The decisive intervention of the allies prevented the success of terrorism and the loss of infrastructure and forced the aggressor to calm down,” referring to the unprecedented attack by Iran on Israel last weekend.
Zelensky said the same could be done to protect Ukraine, which, like Israel, is not a member of NATO, from terrorism. He continued: “This does not require activating Article 5, but only political will.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during his visit to Kharkiv with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte (AP)
According to Article 5 of NATO’s Founding Treaty, an attack against one member of the defensive Alliance “shall be an attack against them all.” Zelensky already called for similar support for Ukraine from allies on Sunday, just hours after an Iranian attack on Israel that was largely repulsed.
*Storms
On the other hand, electricity was cut off to thousands of people in Ukraine on Tuesday, after strong winds and heavy rains damaged the electrical energy infrastructure. The nighttime storms caused increased pressure on the fragile energy system in Ukraine, which has been suffering from almost continuous Russian bombing since the past three and a half weeks. “Due to bad weather conditions, power supplies were cut off to 173 villages in four regions,” according to the Ukrainian Ministry of Energy.
The ministry added, as reported by Agence France-Presse, that in the most affected region of Dnipropetrovsk (central), electricity was cut off for more than 15,000 people in 96 towns and villages. Detec, one of the largest energy companies, said that its engineers worked “all night and into the morning” to restore power to the area. She added: “We are doing our best to restore electricity to all homes by the end of the day.”
Electricity was cut off for more than 15,000 people in 96 Ukrainian towns and villages (EPA)
Weeks ago, the national grid operator, Ukrainergo, warned that Ukraine needed to completely overhaul the energy system amid deadly Russian attacks. Moscow launched a major missile and drone attack on the Ukrainian electricity network on March 22 and has continued its strikes since then, leading to a power outage for more than a million people.
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