- Abdul Jalil Abdul Rasloof – James Fitzgerald
- BBC Kyiv and London
Ukrainian and Moldovan officials have claimed that Russia’s latest air attack on Ukraine saw missiles cross Moldovan airspace.
The chief of staff of the Ukrainian army said that the missiles also flew over Romania, a claim denied by Romania, but later repeated by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Zelensky said the missiles represent a “challenge” to NATO, of which Romania is a member.
A Russian government spokesman did not respond to questions regarding the incident.
Dmitry Peskov told the BBC it was up to the defense ministry, which had yet to comment.
The Moldovan Ministry of Defense called the missile overflight a “violation” and summoned the Russian ambassador for an explanation, having done the same in the wake of a similar incident in October.
The incident occurred on a day of political turmoil in Chisinau, as the entire government resigned.
For its part, Romania insisted that the Russian missiles had not strayed into its airspace “at any time”.
But Zelensky doubled down on the Ukrainian military’s claim in Romania, writing that the Russian missiles raised questions regarding “collective security.”
He added in a post on the messaging application Telegram that there are “victims” of the attack, without specifying a number.
The Ukrainian Air Force said 71 missiles were fired in Friday’s “massive” attack, 61 of which were shot down.
In the followingmath, one of Zelensky’s aides reiterated the West’s call to donate fighter jets, and criticized the “political hesitation” over providing new weapons to his country.
Zelensky himself had spent the previous day meeting EU leaders, appealing to them to send planes, following another visit to Britain for the same purpose.
Ukraine suffers from power outages following targeting energy facilities in six regions.
Officials said that regarding 150,000 homes were without electricity in the eastern Kharkiv region alone, and seven people were injured.
Explosions were heard in Kyiv, although the city’s mayor said no one was hurt. Where residents took refuge in the capital’s subway network.
Other regions, including Kharkiv and Zaporizhia, also came under fire, and the governor of the Mykolaiv region described at least three “waves” of rockets.
Moscow has repeatedly targeted Ukrainian energy facilities over the winter, and Ukraine’s state energy company described Friday’s attack as the 14th of its kind.
Some analysts have described the attacks as war crimes, although Russia has denied intentionally harming civilians.
The country’s energy workers are experiencing increasingly dangerous times, and 98 of them lost their lives in the line of duty last year, an official recently told Latvian media.
On Friday, the head of Ukraine’s state-owned railway network tweeted a defiant message as the air strikes began.
“The trains will start to be late, but none of them will be cancelled. This is a promise, we are determined,” Oleksandr Kamyshin wrote.
