KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia pressed on with its weekslong missile and drone barrage of Kyiv and areas around the Ukrainian capital, killing four people including a child while targeting the power grid and a key internet exchange point, officials said Wednesday.
Moscow’s steep escalation of its aerial campaign since the end of August heaps pressure on Ukraine as it braces for winter, when Russia regularly bombards energy facilities to deny Ukrainians heating and running water.
The heavy overnight attack caused power outages and prompted questions about whether it heralded the start of Russia's anticipated campaign, which Ukrainian officials describe as an attempt to “weaponize winter.”
“There has been virtually no day since summer when the enemy did not attack energy infrastructure,” Prime Minister Serhii Koretskyi said on Telegram. “But such a massive and combined attack happened for the first time since the end of the last heating season.”
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha noted that the uptick in Russian strikes has brought “days of almost uninterrupted air raid alerts across Ukraine.”
“Russia is intensifying its terror: jet-powered drones during the day, ballistic and cruise missiles at night, constant attacks against our cities and civilian life,” Sybiha said on X.
A boy is found dead in the rubble of a Kyiv region home
Ukrainian officials say Moscow is not engaging with U.S. efforts to halt the fighting, 4 ½ years after Russia invaded its neighbor. Moscow says it wants a comprehensive settlement rather than a temporary truce, although its demand for Ukraine to surrender land is unacceptable for Kyiv.
A boy was killed and three other people were rescued from the rubble of a private home in Vyshhorod, a city in the wider Kyiv region, said Tymur Tkachenko, head of the regional military administration.
Russia has exploited gaps in Ukrainian air defenses by firing ballistic missiles and new jet-powered drones, both of which are hard to stop. Air raid alerts are disrupting daily life, sending people running for shelter and denting economic output.
The attacks also killed three people in the capital and wounded at least four others, according to authorities.
Russia has fired more than 3,000 jet-powered drones at Ukraine this month
The main Russian targets were energy infrastructure in Kyiv and the surrounding region, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on social media, describing it as “a difficult attack” as Moscow stretches Ukraine's air defenses.
Zelenskyy thanked foreign countries supporting Ukraine for recent deliveries of air defense help. “And the closer we get to winter, the more of this protection we need," he said. "We must do everything to ensure that Russia’s bet on ballistic missile and drone terror does not pay off.”
Russia fired 2,850 jet-propelled drones at Ukraine in August but by Tuesday it had already launched 3,177 this month, Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yurii Ihnat said.
The attacks come in waves, Ihnat told Ukrainian television late Tuesday, mostly aimed at Kyiv and the surrounding region. Ukraine needs more missiles for U.S.-made Patriot air defense systems to counter ballistic missiles and for other ground-based air defenses, he said.
The Russian Defense Ministry said its overnight attack hit a hydroelectric and a thermal power plant, an electrical substation, an energy storage facility and a data center.
Ukrainian officials didn’t confirm those strikes. Authorities reported hits on civilian areas of at least four Kyiv districts.
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Hatton reported from Lisbon, Portugal.
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