Russia launches two massive bombings against Ukraine in a single day

In a single day, Russia has launched two large-scale bombings against Ukrainian cities far from the front. This Monday morning, kyiv suffered a lightning bombardment launched by the Russian Armed Forces deployed in Crimea. Several hypersonic ballistic missiles fired from the peninsula illegally annexed in 2014 by Moscow have reached the capital, causing damage in three districts. The invader has attacked again this afternoon with ballistic missiles, also coming from the Black Sea, the cities of Odessa and Kremenchuk (this one, in the Poltava region) and the province of Kirovograd, according to the Ukrainian Air Forces.

The speed with which the projectiles have reached kyiv, without the anti-aircraft alarms being able to even warn of the danger, has caused panic among the citizens. It is the third attack suffered by kyiv in five days and the fourth large-scale attack against multiple Ukrainian provinces.

Russian and Ukrainian military analysts have identified that the Russian army has used Zircon missiles, one of the most innovative weapons in its arsenal and which was used for the first time against kyiv last February. The Ukrainian Air Force said two of the missiles were intercepted in the capital. The Ukrainian military has not reported the total number of rockets Russia has fired, but at least five explosions were heard in the city. The speed of the hypersonic missiles, well above the speed of sound, prevented anti-aircraft alarms from being activated before the projectiles arrived or from being shot down during their 600-kilometer flight from Crimea to Kiev.

Ammunition deficit

Ukraine suffers from a serious deficit in anti-aircraft ammunition, and once again bursts of anti-aircraft machine guns have been heard in the capital trying to shoot down the missiles, a measure that is especially effective against drones. “We will never tire of repeating that Ukraine needs more anti-aircraft defenses. This is security for our cities and to save human lives. “Everyone in the world who respects and protects lives must stop this terror,” the president, Volodymyr Zelensky, wrote on social media.

Foreign Minister Dmitro Kuleba has taken a similar position: “What happened today is a reminder that Ukraine urgently requires more anti-aircraft defenses, in particular Patriot missiles.” These are American made. The allocation of more than 50 billion euros that the president of the United States, Joe Biden, wants to allocate to Ukraine for military aid is blocked by Republicans in Congress.

The mayor of kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, has reported damaged buildings in four districts due to the fall of the intercepted missiles. The worst part has been a municipal administration headquarters in the Pechersk district, which has been completely destroyed, causing at least 10 injuries. The capital’s Academy of Decorative Arts and Design has also suffered serious damage. The newspaper Kyiv Post has revealed, citing sources in the secret services, that one of the missiles was aimed at the headquarters of the Security Services of Ukraine (SSU).

In Odessa, at least two large explosions and at least one missile impact have been identified near the Sports Palace of the largest city in southern Ukraine. This has been confirmed by videos on social networks. The provincial government has confirmed that there are three people injured and that civilian structures have been damaged. Regional authorities add that there are 300,000 homes without electricity, so it is likely that the electrical grid has been hit, as happened last week in cities such as Kharkov or Zaporizhzhia. Russian military accounts on Telegram claimed that the attack was against a powder magazine and the local SSU headquarters. Ukrainian authorities generally avoid confirming whether military infrastructure is hit by enemy fire.

The Russian state agency TASS has assured that the main objective of the attack in kyiv has been the Zhuliani airport, the second in the capital and located in the urban center. According to this agency, Russian missiles have destroyed two American Patriot air defense batteries in Zhuliani. The Ukrainian Armed Forces have not commented on this information. Russian military accounts have claimed that the Strii air base, in the west of the country, was also bombed on Sunday. Defense analysts of the invading country believe that its army is intensifying its attacks against Ukrainian airfields to prevent the expected entry into action in the war of F-16 fighters provided by NATO allies to Ukraine.

The bombers of the Ukrainian Air Force also had a special role this weekend, when their long-range Storm Shadow missiles attacked the communications center of the Russian fleet in Crimea, as well as three landing ships, according to the Ministry. defense. Former commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Valeri Zaluzhni reported last November that Ukraine only had about 40 military aircraft left, compared to the 120 with which the war began in February 2022.

Russia has been intensifying its bombing since last week against Ukraine’s power grid. Shahed drone bombs damaged two electrical substations in Odessa and Mikolaiv, in the southwest, on Sunday night. Ukraine also suffered a massive attack against nine provinces in the early hours of Sunday, just one day after the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, accused the Kiev authorities of being involved in the jihadist attack that ended the life of at least 137 people in a concert hall near Moscow. Ukrainian authorities have assumed that Putin would use this accusation to increase his war effort in Ukraine.

Attacks on Russian military targets in Crimea, a region that Putin considers vital to Russian national identity, are also a recurring excuse for the Kremlin to launch retaliatory bombings. Another factor that may have triggered the recent large-scale Russian bombings, after months of less activity, is the offensive that the Ukrainian intelligence services are carrying out, using bomb drones, against Russian oil refineries, and which could have interrupted more 10% of fuel production, according to reports from the United Kingdom Ministry of Defense.