Kyiv, Ukraine — Russia retaliated in brutal fashion this week after drone strikes targeted three airfields, including two deep inside its territory. The latest attack occurred on Tuesday morning against a Russian airport across the border with Ukrainebut it was preceded by two others on Monday in which the drones penetrated hundreds of miles into Russia.
The first strikes, for which Ukraine has not claimed responsibility, vaguely calling it karma for Russia’s invasion and airstrike that began in February, prompted a new barrage of missiles from Russian forces, targeting dozens of targets in Ukraine. .
Russia has been trying to demoralize the Ukrainians and their army tearing down power and water infrastructure. The frenzied attack on cities and towns across the country on Monday prompted the launch of more than 70 missiles, according to Ukrainian officials. The Kyiv governor said some 40% of the capital region was left in the dark, but the impact of Moscow’s attack could have been far worse were it not for Ukraine’s missile defenses.
Ukrainian officials say the vast majority of the rockets launched by Russia on Monday were fired from the sky.
Still little consolation for those who have paid the highest price, including Olha Trosyna’s two neighbors.
“They were seeing off their son and daughter-in-law,” Trosyna told CBS News in Kyiv. “They went out to say goodbye and they were killed. His house was also destroyed.”
Amid the barrage of missiles, Moscow also issued another dire warning to the United States and Ukraine’s other Western backers.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who has been a close adviser to President Vladimir Putin for decades, called the NATO alliance’s support for Ukraine a “serious threat” to Russia and warned it risked a “clash between nuclear powers with catastrophic consequences”.
Russia has ruthlessly attacked Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure for months, destroying homes along with key pieces of the country’s power grid. Putin has been accused of weaponizing winter by plunging large parts of the neighboring country into cold and darkness.
In the southern city of Kherson, which was liberated from invading Russian forces just three weeks ago, volunteers now have no choice but to cook over campfires so people have something hot to eat.
Nine months of Russian occupation have erased any semblance of normalcy in Kherson, but what Ukrainians have shown time and time again is that they will do everything they can to help each other and resist Putin’s efforts to quell their spirit.
Energy workers have become a vital part of defense efforts, scrambling to restore power lines in the bitter cold and having to wade through unexploded ordnance littering large parts of Ukraine.
As Moscow continues to make life miserable for Ukrainians, Putin made a rare public appearance on Monday, sailing across a vital bridge that serves as the only land link between Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula and the Russian-occupied part of Ukraine. mainland Russia in a Mercedes on Monday.
It is a bridge that was seriously damaged by a huge explosion two months ago. Ukraine has also refused to publicly take responsibility for that blast, as it did on Tuesday after two military bases some 300 miles inside Russia were attacked by drones.
Once again, Kyiv officials blamed the explosions on karma, making it clear that whatever happens in Russia is not Ukraine’s fault, but Vladimir Putin’s.
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