Russian missiles rain down on Ukrainian cities

Ukrainians face a dark start to the new year after aerial bombardment knocked out power stations and other vital facilities.

A resident speaks on a phone as she walks among debris of destroyed homes. Picture: AFP

Cities in Ukraine are facing a dark start to the New Year this weekend after a barrage of cruise missiles knocked out power stations and other vital facilities across the country.

The Russian attack began on Wednesday night with the launch of 50 “kamikaze” explosive drones and continued on Thursday morning with at least 69 cruise missiles.

The Ukrainian military said its air defences managed to shoot down 54 but enough landed to wipe out power to 90 per cent of the western city of Lviv, which has been relatively sheltered from the conflict so far.

Two people were killed in Kharkiv, 32km from the Russian border, and at least six injured in other areas.

With its attempts to seize the remaining parts of the Donbas bogged down or in retreat, and having failed to gain air superiority, Russia has turned to long-range aerial bombardment to keep pressure on the government in Kyiv.

Thursday’s assault was just one in a series of raids across the country apparently intended to demoralise the civilian population.

“Russia is trying to deprive Ukrainians of light before the New Year,” Denys Shmyhal, the Ukrainian prime minister, said.

Missile contrails seen in the sky over Kyiv on Thursday, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Picture: AFP

Police experts examine remains of a downed missile which fell on vehicles parked at a multistorey residential building in Kyiv. Picture: AFP

The bombardment made a mockery of calls for a truce over Christmas and the New Year.

Dmytro Kuleba, the Ukrainian foreign minister, said this week that Ukraine would not negotiate directly with Russia unless its leaders faced trial for war crimes.

Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, said Ukraine must accept all Moscow’s demands, including giving up sovereignty over the four regions it claims to have annexed, as well as Crimea, seized in 2014.

The Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova dismissed Kuleba’s proposal as “delirious” and “hollow”.

The cruise missiles were fired by warships in the Black Sea and Tu-95 strategic bombers from inside Russia itself, the Ukrainian defence ministry said. It also said that among the drones shot down were Iranian Shahed models.

Given the scale of the attack, the loss of life could have been worse.

Vitali Klitschko, the former boxing world champion who is now mayor of Kyiv, said that all 16 missiles fired at the city were shot down.

Rescuers clear debris around destroyed homes in Kyiv. Picture: AFP

However, the damage to infrastructure elsewhere was severe, with an electricity station hit in Kharkiv, which has repeatedly been targeted. Missiles even hit Ivano-Frankivsk, the most westerly province in the country, near the Slovak border.

The missile barrages suggest that Russian president Vladimir Putin is reluctant to escalate the ground war or bring in new forces, perhaps by conscription, to break the current deadlock.

However, the position of Belarus, Russia’s main European ally, continues to be ambiguous. It claimed a Ukrainian S-300 air-defence missile was shot down over its territory Thursday morning.

The Times