Comment Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Tuesday that Russia is targeting critical civilian infrastructure in Ukraine to reduce the country’s military capability – fending off accusations that Moscow is committing war crimes by trying to leave people without electricity or heat during winter. “With precision guided strikes, we continue to effectively hit military infrastructure facilities, as well as facilities that affect the reduction of Ukraine’s military potential,” Shoigu said during a Defense Ministry teleconference, according to Russian media. Shoigu’s boast about the success of Russia’s airstrikes came a day after Russia launched a new barrage of cruise missile attacks that hit at least 10 regions across Ukraine, destroying energy facilities and infrastructure and leaving many residents of the capital Kiev , temporarily without domestic water supply. Ukrainian officials have accused Russia of trying to terrorize the civilian population by repeatedly striking energy infrastructure, raising the prospect of power and heat shortages during an increasingly bitter winter. Western officials have repeatedly condemned Russia’s attacks. Attacking civilian targets is potentially a war crime, but it can be difficult to prove that energy infrastructure doesn’t also help support soldiers on the front lines. The US is struggling to track US weapons in the heat of the Ukraine war “Instead of fighting on the battlefield, Russia is fighting civilians,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted on Monday. “Russia is doing this because it still has the missiles and the will to kill Ukrainians.” Shoigu, who is under pressure in Moscow over repeated battlefield failures, insisted on Tuesday that Russia was trying to prevent casualties among Ukrainian civilians — a false claim given to repeated shelling of populated areas of Ukraine since the invasion began on 24 February. “Comprehensive measures are being taken to prevent the death of Ukrainian citizens,” Shoigu said, according to Russian media. Monday’s strikes hit 10 regions and destroyed 18 targets, most of them energy facilities, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Smykhal said. At least 13 people were injured across the country, according to Ukraine’s national police. In Kyiv, water supply was fully restored on Tuesday, Ukrainian officials said. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Tuesday that city authorities are preparing to deploy around 1,000 “warming points” in case of power outages. “Due to the attacker’s missile attacks on critical infrastructure facilities, we are considering various scenarios for the development of events. The worst is when there is no electricity, water and heat supply at all,” Klitschko wrote on Telegram. Shoigu also spoke Tuesday with Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar as the United Nations warned that cargo ships carrying grain from Ukrainian ports would stop sailing after Moscow announced it was pulling out of a Turkish-brokered deal to ensuring the passage of vessels in the Black Sea. Database of 278 videos exposes the horrors of the war in Ukraine Ukraine had warned for several weeks that Russia planned to withdraw from the deal, and senior Russian officials said on Monday that they were indeed canceling it – in response to Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian naval vessels in Crimea, where the fleet is based of the Black Sea. During his teleconference on Tuesday, Shoigu reiterated that Russia’s “partial mobilization” effort was complete after 300,000 fighters had been called up as reinforcements for the war in Ukraine. Shoigu said only 87,000 of those recruits had been sent into combat and added that “deficiencies in the activities of military commissions” had been resolved, a reference to the chaos created by the mobilization, in which many conscripts said they were not given proper equipment or training and others said they were called up for duty despite being old, sick or otherwise exempt. Missiles hit Ukraine as Russia hits infrastructure in new air barrier While officials in Moscow insisted the goals of the mobilization had been met, the European Union’s foreign policy arm said Russia had launched a new recruitment drive in Crimea, the peninsula illegally annexed by Ukraine in 2014, and that this included the “unfounded targeting”. of the Crimean Tatars, a predominantly Muslim ethnic minority. “Crimean Tatars are being deliberately and disproportionately targeted in the implementation of Russia’s mobilization order and are allegedly violently involved in Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, their traditional homeland,” the EU statement said. It called Russia’s actions “yet violation of international law”. Crimean Tatars make up about 13 percent of Crimea’s population and have faced discrimination since Russia’s illegal annexation. At the start of Russia’s mobilization, activists warned that Tatars were being disproportionately targeted and that many men of fighting age had been forced to flee. There is no official tally of how many Tatars were called up for military service, but Crimea SOS, a rights group, estimates that 90 percent of mobilization notices in Crimea were issued to Tatars.
