Russia has launched a missile barrage into Ukraine, an attack targeting electrical infrastructure resulting in the deaths of at least six people and damaging the infrastructure of buildings in nearly a dozen regions.
Ukrainian officials said the airstrikes severed the last remaining power line to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, forcing the plant to rely on generator power, the Washington Post reported.
Moscow says the latest attack was a retaliatory strike on key Ukranian military sites in response to Kiev’s attacks in the Bynansk Region. Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman Lieutenant-General Igor Konashenkov said that the goal of the strike was achieved and that all designated targets were hit.
“The strike destroyed the bases of strike unmanned aerial vehicles, disrupted the deployment of reserves and the railway carriages of foreign-made armaments and knocked out the capacities for the repair of military hardware and the production of ammunition,” the spokesman said, according to Russian state news agency Tass.
Following the attack, nearly half of the homes in the capital city of Kyiv were left without heat, and roughly 150,000 households were left without power.
In response to the attack, officials at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) urged immediate action.
“However, yet again Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant is running on emergency diesels – the last line of defence. This is the sixth time – let me say it again SIXTH time — that ZNPP has lost all off-site power and has had to operate in this emergency mode,” IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said in a message to the Board of Governors. “Let me remind you – this is the largest nuclear power station in Europe. What are we doing? How can we sit here in this room this morning and allow this to happen? This cannot go on.”
According to Ukraine’s military, 81 missiles were launched in the attack, including multiple hypersonic missiles, against which it is nearly impossible to defend. A Ukrainian Air Force spokesperson said it was the first time Russia had used “so many different types of missiles,” according to Newsweek.
General Valerie Zaluzhnyi, a four-star general serving as Ukraine’s Commander-in-Chief, told his followers on the social messaging app Telegram that Moscow deployed:
- 28 launches of Kh-101/Kh-555 air-based cruise missiles;
- 20 launches of Kalibr sea-based cruise missiles;
- 6 launches of X-22 air-based cruise missiles;
- 6 launches of Kh-47 “Kinzhal” air-based cruise missiles;
- 8 launches of guided air missiles: 2 – Kh-31P; 6 – X-59;
- 13 launches of S-300 anti-aircraft guided missiles.
- 8 launches of Shahed-136/131 attack drones
Zaluzhnyi says that Ukrainian forces “destroyed 34 out of 54 cruise missiles (63 percent), all eight of the air-launched guided missiles (100 percent), and four drones (50 percent),” Forbes reported.
The Kh-47 Kinzhal is a 26-foot-long, 1,000-pound, nuclear capable hypersonic missile with an effective range of up to about 1,250 miles. Hypersonic missiles — which Ukraine has no way of shooting down — are incredibly difficult to defend against because they are able to maneuver while maintaining travel at hypersonic speeds. The Kinzhal is a cornerstone in Russia’s next generation “super weapons” program.
