kyiv, at night, is once again a city plunged into darkness, where electricity is strictly rationed. Here and there, in the backyards of buildings, we hear the purr of a gasoline generator. Looking up at the dark facades, we see the lights of homes equipped with electric generators, onto which we plug a single lamp, sometimes a garland. Some residents make do with the flickering light of a candle.
Moscow is redoubling its efforts this year, as in the first winter of the war, to plunge Ukraine into the hell of the cold. On Thursday, November 28, the Russian army fired 188 missiles and drones at the country, of which 114 were intercepted by anti-aircraft defense, according to the Ukrainian Air Force. They mainly targeted energy infrastructure. This is the second attack of this scale in November, the eleventh this year. A million Ukrainians, according to regional authorities, woke up without electricity. Energy Minister German Galushchenko said Russia had carried out a “massive blow” to Ukraine's energy capabilities.
The destruction of civilian energy infrastructure is a war crime having already led to the issuance of arrest warrants against Russian officials by the International Criminal Court, in March and then in June. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky this time accused Moscow of having also attacked targets with cluster bombs, in order to undermine energy sites and hinder the work of rescue and maintenance teams. “A despicable escalation”he commented.
“A desire to kill and destroy”
From Kazakhstan, where he is attending a regional summit, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the air raids on Ukraine were a ” answer “ to Ukraine's use of American and British missiles against Russian territory. He also threatened to hit “decision centers, including kyiv”with the powerful Orechnik hypersonic missile, used for the first time on November 21 against the city of Dnipro. He had already mentioned that he could give the order to target military sites of Western countries supplying weapons to Ukraine, specifying: “If you use several of these systems in one strike – two, three, four – then, in terms of its power, it is comparable to the use of a nuclear weapon. »
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Source: Lemonde