Second major attack within a fortnight leaves millions of people without power
The symbolic ‘cemetery of destroyed civilian cars’ in Irpin, near Kyiv. PIC/AFP
Russia conducted a “massive” attack against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure on Thursday, firing nearly 200 missiles and drones and leaving more than a million households without power, Ukrainian officials said. Russia’s second major aerial attack on Ukraine’s power grid in less than two weeks amplified fears that the Kremlin aims to cripple the country’s power generation capacity before winter.
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“Attacks on energy facilities are happening all over Ukraine,” Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko said in a post on Facebook. He added that emergency power outages were implemented nationwide. In some regions, Kalibr cruise missiles with cluster munitions smashed into civilian targets, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, calling it “an insidious escalation”. Cluster munitions release numerous small bombs over a wide area, making them dangerous to civilians both during and after an attack.
Ukrainian officials have warned recently that Russia was stockpiling cruise and ballistic missiles, presumably for another pre-winter aerial campaign against Ukraine’s power grid. Ukrainian officials have in the past accused Russia of “weaponising winter” using similar strategies.
White House pressing Ukraine to draft 18-yr-olds
President Joe Biden’s administration is urging Ukraine to quickly increase the size of its military by drafting more troops and revamping its mobilization laws to allow for the conscription of those as young as 18. A senior Biden administration official said on Wednesday that the outgoing Democratic administration wants Ukraine to lower the mobilisation age to 18 from the current age of 25 to expand the pool of fighting-age men.
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