Russian 'massive rocket attacks' target critical infra across Ukraine

Russia unleashed a massive rocket attack that hit critical infrastructure and residential buildings in 10 regions of Ukraine the countrys president said on Thursday with officials reporting at least six deaths in the largest such nighttime attack in three weeksVolodymyr Zelenskyy described the barrage that came while many people slept as an attempt by Moscow to intimidate Ukrainians again The occupiers can only terrorise civilians Thats all they can do Zelenskyy said in an online statementThe war has largely ground to a battlefield stalemate over the winter The Kremlins forces started targeting Ukraines power supply last October in an apparent attempt to demoralize the civilian population The barrages later became less frequent with analysts speculating Russia may have been running low on ammunition The last massive barrage took place on February 16US intelligence doesnt believe Russia can make major territorial gains in Ukraine this year due to its large numbers of casualties its inability to replenish its stocks of weapons and ammunition and poor leadership and morale Avril Haines the director of national intelligence told a US Senate committee on Wednesday That may persuade Russian President Vladimir Putin to prolong the war she saidThe latest missile attack left almost half of consumers in Kyiv without heating with temperatures at around 9 degrees Celsius 48 Fahrenheit amid a spring thawIn southern Ukraine the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant which is occupied by Russian forces lost power as a result of the missile attacks according to nuclear state operator EnergoatomIt is the sixth time that Europes largest nuclear plant has been in a state of blackout since it was taken over by Russia months ago forcing it to rely on diesel generators that can run the station for 10 days Nuclear plants need constant power to run cooling systems and avoid a meltdown and fears remain about the possibility of a catastrophe at ZaporizhzhiaThe head of the UN nuclear watchdog expressed alarm at the latest blackout saying he was astonished by the complacency of the organisation he leads the International Atomic Energy AgencyWhat are we doing to prevent this happening We are the IAEA we are meant to care about nuclear safety he told its board of directors in a meeting Thursday according to an IAEA statement Each time we are rolling a dice he said And if we allow this to continue time after time then one day our luck will run outThe agency has placed teams of experts at all four of Ukraines nuclear power plants to reduce the risk of severe accidentsAir raid sirens wailed through the night across Ukraine including the capital Kyiv where explosions occurred in two western areas of the city Defence systems were activated around the countryOverall Russia launched 81 missiles and eight exploding Shahed drones according to Ukraines chief commander of the armed forces Valerii Zaluzhnyi Thirtyfour cruise missiles were intercepted as were four drones he saidAlso read Ukraine says 5 dead others hurt in Russian missile attacksViktor Bukhta a 57yearold resident of a damaged residential building in Kyivs Sviatoshynski district where officials said three people were wounded and apartment windows were shattered said a missile landed nearby at about 645 amWe went into the yard People were injured they helped first aid kits were handed out from the cars he told The Associated Press Then the cars caught fire We tried to extinguish them with car fire extinguishers And I got a little burntKyivs city administration said the capital was attacked with both missiles and exploding drones Many were intercepted but its energy infrastructure was hit Smoke could be seen rising from a facility in Kyivs Holosiivskyi district and police had cordoned off all roads leading to itThe alarm in Kyiv was lifted just before 8 am with the air raid sirens falling silent after some seven hours Private electricity operator DTEK reported that three of its power stations had been hit There were no casualties but the company said equipment was severely damagedKharkiv Ukraines secondlargest city was left without running water and heating after 15 missiles hit the region mayor Ihor Terekhov told the Ukrainian public broadcasterTerekhov added that electricity shortages also disrupted mobile communications and public transport in the city as all trams and trolleybuses ground to a halt Five people were killed in the Lviv region after a missile struck a residential area Lviv Gov Maksym Kozytskyi saidThree buildings were destroyed by fire and rescue workers were combing through rubble looking for more possible victims he said A sixth person was killed and two others wounded in multiple strikes in the Dnipropetrovsk region that targeted its energy infrastructure and industrial facilities Gov Serhii Lysak saidIn the south Odesa Gov Maksym Marchenko said residential buildings were hit and several power lines were damaged in strikes on his region He said six missiles and one drone were shot downUkrainian Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko condemned the missile strikes as another barbaric massive attack on the energy infrastructure of Ukraine saying in a Facebook post that facilities in Kyiv Mykolaiv Kharkiv Zaporizhzhia Odesa Dnipropetrovsk and Zhytomyr regions had been targetedUkrainian Railways reported power outages in certain areas with 15 trains delayedPreventive emergency power cuts were applied in Kyiv Dnipropetrovsk Donetsk and Odesa regions supplier DTEK said Klitschko said 40 per cent of consumers in Kyiv were without heating because of the emergency power cuts Water supplies were uninterrupted he saidThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever