Juan Pablo Duch
Correspondent
The newspaper La Jornada
Tuesday, August 27, 2024, p. 30
Moscow. Russia appears to have set itself the goal of leaving Ukraine in the dark when it launched more than 100 missiles, including hypersonic, ballistic and cruise missiles, and a similar number of drones against energy facilities, including the Kiev hydroelectric plant, in 15 of the 24 administrative regions of the neighbouring country, over a period of 10 hours yesterday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described this massive and combined attack as one of the biggest since the war began and stressed Their cruelty in wanting to damage the most critical civilian infrastructure in most of our regions, from Kharkiv to kyiv and Odessa.
Ukraine’s air defense system said it shot down 102 of the 117 missiles and 99 of the 109 drones launched by Russia.
The Kiev hydroelectric dam was hit by a missile, but authorities said that It is impossible to use such missiles to destroy the dam holding back the waters of the Dnipro River reservoir, whose collapse would cause a catastrophe in the Ukrainian capital.
Zelensky said that emergency services They are dedicated to repairing the damaged facilities to restore the electricity and drinking water supply as soon as possible. in areas where blackouts occurred.
Although it is premature to know the number of victims, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmihal has told the Ukrainian press that there are five cases of death and thirty wounded, as well as numerous buildings and vehicles damaged by direct impacts or falling fragments.
Meanwhile, early this morning, Ukraine attacked the Russian regions of Saratov, Kursk, Bryansk, Belgorod, Tula, Orlov, Ryazan and Volgograd with drones, according to reports of 20 downed unmanned aerial vehicles provided by the Russian Ministry of Defense.
Saratov Governor Roman Busargin said that two drones hit two newly built skyscrapers in the cities of Saratov (37 floors) and Engels (25 floors), located opposite each other on the left and right banks of the Volga River.
Taking into account that other drones reached the Engels-2 military airfield, four kilometers from the river, which serves as a base for bombers Tu-160 and Tu-95MCThe hit on residential buildings could have been due to two reasons: either the Ukrainians, when planning the flight path, relied on previous maps that did not include the skyscrapers, one inhabited since 2015 and the other from 2021, or Russian electronic combat resources diverted these drones, Russian expert Yan Matveyev believes.
Response to the Kursk invasion?
It is not clear whether yesterday’s attack on 15 regions of Ukraine was the response inevitable that Russian President Vladimir Putin promised at the time The Ukrainian invasion of the Russian region of Kursk on August 6th, where 20 days later the fighting continues without major changes in recent days: the Ukrainians are trying to advance a little further, the Russians are trying to prevent it.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said yesterday morning that There will certainly be an answerbut it did so hours after, according to estimates by kyiv’s anti-aircraft defense, 11 Tu-95MC and six Tu-22M3 had finished launching their missiles and guided bombs, as had four warships and an undetermined number of land-based missile systems.
However, Andrei Kartapolov, chairman of the Defense Committee of the Duma or Federal Chamber of Deputies, considered that this attack It is part of our response to the Kursk provocation, and there will be more..
The Russian Ministry of Defense issued a statement stating: This morning (Monday), the armed forces of the Russian Federation launched a massive strike using long-range precision weapons based on air and sea, operational tactical aviation and drones against critical energy infrastructure facilities supporting the operation of the Ukrainian military-industrial complex..
He said the attack focused on electrical substations in the kyiv, Vinnitsa, Zhitomir, Khmelnitsky, Dnipropetrovsk, Poltava, Nikolaev, Kirovograd and Odesa regions.
He added: Our armed forces attacked gas compression stations in the Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk and Kharkiv regions, which ensure the functioning of Ukraine’s gas transportation system..
There are several attacks of a similar magnitude. To mention a few, on December 29, 2023, Russia launched 122 missiles of different types and 36 drones and just a few days later, on January 2, 2024, it repeated the attack with the same number of unmanned aerial vehicles and missiles.
And before the presidential elections in Russia, Putin promised to respond to the Ukrainian bombing of the Belgorod region, and did so on March 22 this year with 90 missiles and 60 drones.