Russia launched 71 cruise missiles at Ukraine on Friday, causing emergency power outages for millions of people and promoting new calls by Kyivs for Western arms.
Ukraine’s air force said “As of 11:30 a.m., the enemy had launched 71 X-101, X-555 and Kalibr missiles. The air defense forces, Air Force and other components of the Ukrainian Defense Forces destroyed 61 enemy cruise missiles.”
Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said that Russia refuses to accept failure that’s why spreading terror using their missiles but Ukrainian Air Force face them and destroyed most of them.
Russian Forces launched Kablir sea-launched cruise missiles from ship in Black Sea and also used eight TU-95MS strategic bombers. Ukrainian Air force also claimed that Russia has fired X-101 and X-555 missiles from the Caspian Sea and the city of Volgodonsk in Russia.
Ukraine’s Reaction to the Missile Strike
Ukraine’s Prime Minister said that this was another attempt to destroy Ukrainian energy system and deprive Ukrainians light, water and heat.
He said “We have sustained damage to high-voltage infrastructure and generation in the western, central and eastern regions, which may cause power outages.”
Ukrainian Military said “Russian forces mainly focuses on Ukraine’s industrial east, especially Luhansk and Donetsk Provinces.”
According to Ukraine’s energy company, Ukrenergo, it was the 14th round of massive strikes on country’s power supply. The last strike happened on 26th January intending to leave Ukrainians without heat and water in the country’s blistering winter.
Also, Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilita of Moldova announced on Friday that she and her government are resigning after a being 18 months in power. The country, with a population of 2.5 million, has experienced soaring inflation and struggled with the aftermath of Russia’s war on Ukraine, including an influx of Ukrainian refugees and was suffering from power cuts from Russian air attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure. Additionally, the former Soviet republic continues to struggle with rising prices of every resource and was unable to break its dependency on Russian gas which was becoming expensive day by day.
To get live updates of the Russia-Ukraine War, visit the link below:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/series/ukraine-live