Russia has today unleashed another deadly wave on Ukraine, with a relentless series of missile strikes smashing into residential buildings and critical infrastructure facilities across the country.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Moscow of spreading fresh ‘terror and murder’ across Ukraine – hours after a newborn was killed in an attack on a maternity hospital.
The latest air strikes hit a two-storey residential building in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, killing three people and injuring three more, as well as critical infrastructure facilities in and around the city.
Russian strikes on Ukraine’s power grid left residents in the entire Kyiv region, western city of Lyiv, the northern city of Kharkiv and the southern Odesa region without electricity.
The bombardment also caused blackouts across half of neighbouring Moldova, the deputy prime minister of the country said on Wednesday.
Air sirens blared across Ukraine and locals reported seeing Ukrainian air defence systems in action in several parts of the country.
Multiple regions across Ukraine reported attacks in quick succession, suggesting a barrage of strikes by the Russian military.
The renewed barrage will pile further hardship on a country already labouring from repeated strikes on its power grid, with Russia seemingly intent on turning the onset of winter into a weapon, by pounding Ukraine’s key infrastructure from the air.
Firefighters were seen at the site of a fire caused by a Russian missile strike in Kyiv today
The air strikes hit a two-storey residential building in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, killing at least one person, as well as critical infrastructure facilities in and around the city. Pictured: A victim of the airstrike is seen led on the floor while covered in an emergency medical blanket
Locals carry a person injured in the Russian missile strike in a duvet cover in Kyiv on Wednesday
First responders arrived at the scene of a fire in Kyiv following the Russian missile strike on Wednesday
In Kyiv, locals heard several loud explosions as air defence missiles flew overhead.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said that ‘one of the capital’s infrastructure facilities has been hit’ and there were ‘several more explosions in different districts’ of the city. he added that water supplies were knocked out in all of Kyiv.
Meanwhile, Kharkiv’s mayor said that power was out in the city, Ukraine’s second largest, and all public transport had stopped running.
Lviv regional governor Maksym Kozytskyy reported ‘two missile strikes on a power substation’ in the region, and several districts of the region have been left without power. The entire Kyiv region is now without electricity, according to governor Oleksiy Kuleba.
State-owned grid operator Ukrenergo said Russia’s missile attack was continuing, but there were already emergency shutdowns in all regions.
‘This is a necessary step to protect power grids from additional technological accidents and support the operation of the power system,’ Ukrenergo said. The repair work will begin when air raid sirens cease.
The latest onslaught came hours after Ukrainian authorities said an overnight rocket attack destroyed a hospital maternity ward in southern Ukraine, killing a 2-day-old baby.
Following the overnight strike in Vilniansk, close to the city of Zaporizhzhia, the baby’s mother and a doctor were pulled alive from the rubble.
The region’s governor said the rockets were Russian. The strike adds to the gruesome toll suffered by hospitals and other medical facilities – and their patients and staff – in the Russian invasion that will enter its tenth month this week.
President Volodymyr Zelensky denounced the strikes as Russian ‘terror and murder’.
First lady Olena Zelenska wrote on Twitter that a 2-day-old boy died in the strike and expressed her condolences. ‘Horrible pain. We will never forget and never forgive,’ she said.
A Russian missile struck the maternity ward of the Vilnianska Hospital near Zaporizhzhia, early Wednesday morning. Pictured: Firefighters search through the rubble of a building, Nov. 23
Medical workers’ efforts have been complicated by the succession of Russian attacks in recent weeks on Ukraine’s infrastructure.
The situation is even worse in the southern city of Kherson, from which Russia retreated nearly two weeks ago after months of occupation – cutting power and water lines.
Many doctors in the city are working in the dark, unable to use elevators to transport patients to surgery and operating with headlamps, cell phones and flashlights. In some hospitals, key equipment no longer works.
‘Breathing machines don’t work, X-ray machines don’t work … There is only one portable ultrasound machine and we carry it constantly,’ said Volodymyr Malishchuk, the head of surgery at a children’s hospital in the city.
On Tuesday, after strikes on Kherson seriously wounded 13-year-old Artur Voblikov, a team of health staff carefully maneuvered the sedated boy up six flights of a narrow staircase to an operating room to amputate his left arm.
Malischchuk said that three children wounded by Russian strikes have come to the hospital this week, half as many as had previously been admitted in all of the nine months since the invasion began. Picking up a piece of shrapnel that was found in a 14-year-old boy’s stomach, he said children are arriving with severe head injuries and ruptured internal organs.
Artur’s mother, Natalia Voblikova, sat in the dark hospital with her daughter, waiting for his surgery to end.
‘You can’t even call (Russians) animals, because animals take care of their own,’ said Voblikova wiping tears from her eyes. ‘But the children … Why kill children?’
In Strasbourg, France, the European Parliament overwhelmingly backed a resolution labeling Russia a state sponsor of terrorism for its invasion of and actions in Ukraine. The nonbinding but symbolically significant resolution passed in a 494-58 vote with 48 abstentions.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy welcomed the vote. ‘Russia must be isolated at all levels and be held accountable in order to end its longstanding policy of terrorism in Ukraine and across the globe,’ he wrote on Twitter.
After Wednesday’s strikes, senior Zelenskyy aide Andriy Yermak wrote on Telegram: ‘The terrorists immediately confirm that they are terrorists – they launch rockets. Naive losers.’