President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Tuesday that 30% of Ukraine’s power plants have been destroyed in drone attacks since October 10, leading to “massive blackouts” across the country. He urged Ukrainians to use less electricity at night. Four people were killed when a drone struck a residential building in Kyiv on Monday, the mayor said. Vitali Klitschko said Russia launched 28 drones during the attack and five explosions were heard in the city. Ukrainian authorities say the drones are Iranian-made and have called on Tehran to stop supplying them to Russia. Iran has denied supplying the drones and Russia has not commented. Moscow denies targeting civilians. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba called on the EU to impose sanctions on Iran. “In the last week alone, the Russian Federation has struck with more than a hundred Iranian kamikaze drones on homes, power plants, sewage treatment plants, bridges and playgrounds in several Ukrainian cities,” he said on Monday. “Dozens of people, including children, were killed and injured. We call on Tehran to immediately stop supplying Russia with any weapons.” Ukraine’s Air Force says it has shot down 223 of the drones since they first appeared over the country on September 13. Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov estimated that Russia still has a stockpile of about 300 drones and plans to buy “several thousand” more. Ukraine has accused Russia of increasing its use of drones as its stockpile of precision missiles is low. Reznikov released stockpile figures suggesting Russia has fired two-thirds of its most advanced missiles at Ukraine and has about 600 remaining. According to United States intelligence, Russia is also buying artillery shells from North Korea to replenish its dwindling stockpile.
Resentment and demands for help
The Russian air campaign prompted Estonia’s parliament to declare Russia a “terrorist state”. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called the attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure “war crimes.” The hail of devastation in Ukrainian cities also hastened the delivery of air defense systems and ignited new pledges for arms deliveries from allies. Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ignat said the German-supplied IRIS-T air defense system had already been integrated into Ukraine’s air defenses and is operational. Reznikov said the first US-promised National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) would arrive in Ukraine this month. The UK said it would send Ukraine hundreds of AMRAAM missiles for US launchers, while France promised Ukraine Crotale short-range air defense systems, which are effective against aircraft and missiles. US President Joe Biden announced a new arms delivery worth $725 million. The pack includes vehicles and munitions, including HIMARS multiple missile launchers. Ukraine and its allies have also begun to consider more comprehensive and long-term air defense solutions. Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, said that the US is considering the creation of integrated air defense systems for specific areas of Ukraine, including short-, medium- and long-range air defense systems. “The combination of all these means will allow us to close the airspace to Russian aircraft,” Milley said. Yuryi Zozulya, an adviser to the mayor of Kyiv, said British and Canadian scientists were working on a protective canopy to keep drones away from the Ukrainian capital. It would take about two years to complete, but parts of it were already operational, he said.
Russian stories
Russia has escalated its targeting of cities across Ukraine after the October 8 bombing of the Kerch bridge, which connects the occupied Crimean peninsula with Russia. Maxim Alyukov, a researcher at the Russia Institute at King’s College London, told Al Jazeera that the attack on the bridge, a symbol of Russian prestige, influenced President Vladimir Putin to go along with the demands of Russian nationalists and hardliners. “The pro-war communities and military reporters on Telegram and, to some extent, the hosts and participants of political talk shows got very angry,” Alyukov said. “And while they were radical even before, pushing the government to announce a mobilization and even use nuclear weapons after the attack on the Kerch Bridge, a narrative was used on state television that… “we are very humane and do not target civilian infrastructure and stations power generation, and we should probably rethink our strategy.” After the Kerch Bridge, they started saying, ‘Now we’re fully engaged.’” Alyukov says civilian or civilian infrastructure is presented as critical to Ukraine’s war effort to justify being targeted by Russia. “The media was using certain terms even before the current attack in Kyiv – ‘vital infrastructure’ and ‘decision-making centers’, meaning administrative buildings such as parliament, government, security services, etc.,” he said. Aliukof. “Now [after the Kerch Bridge attack], are using those terms to mean that this infrastructure is critical to the Ukrainian war effort,” he said. “They try to avoid using the word citizen.”
Preparations for evacuations in Kherson
On the ground, Russian forces made little progress in the 34th week of the war. The main area where Russian forces remained firmly on the offensive was around Bakhmut in the Donetsk region, where Group Wagner mercenaries are reported to be heavily involved in the fighting. Russian forces have been trying to capture the eastern transport hub for months. The fighting there was merciless. Ukraine’s defense ministry released a few seconds of video from the battlefields around Bakhmut showing a scene of trenches amid red earth and broken bare trees. “There are very complex, heavy battles going on there, [where] the enemy has gathered its most powerful forces,” said Serhii Tserevaty, a spokesman for Ukraine’s eastern forces. In Kherson in the south and Kharkiv in the north, Russian forces have been trying to contain Ukrainian offensives since August. Russian news agency Tass reported that Russian defenders prevented Ukrainian forces from crossing the Zherebets River in the Stelmakhovka and Makeevka areas as they tried to advance on Svatove in the Luhansk region. Russia also said it repelled a Ukrainian attack on Bruskinskoye, Kosara and Pyatikhatki on the west bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson. Local Russian officials spoke in defensive tones. “Our army is ready to repel all these attacks, to stand to the end, as the Kherson region is a full subject of the Russian Federation,” said Kirill Stremusov, deputy governor of the Russian administration in Kherson. Kherson is one of four Ukrainian regions that Russia unilaterally annexed on September 30, although it only partially controls them. Moscow is preparing to help residents of the occupied part of Kherson move to Russia, in a sign that its hold on the region is waning. Zelensky said Ukraine’s armed forces have recaptured 1,620 settlements across the country since the start of the war.
