Moscow ramped up its aerial bombardment of Ukraine on Tuesday, leaving many cities without power, as a G20 meeting in Bali moved toward a resolution condemning the Russian invasion.
Moscow has in recent weeks targeted core energy infrastructure and other utilities in an attempt to break Ukrainian morale before winter, partly in response to major failures on the battlefield. The Russians’ loss of the southern city of Kherson is the latest defeat that is now pushing Moscow to switch back to murderous attacks on civilian targets.
Those attacks struck hard on Tuesday, with the deputy head of the office of the president, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, writing on Telegram that the energy situation across Ukraine was “critical.”
The power outages extended to neighboring Moldova, with Infrastructure Minister Andrei Spinu saying in a statement that a key power line had been “disconnected,” resulting in “massive power outages across the country.” The power line was “not damaged,” Spinu added.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak wrote on Twitter that Putin was unleashing missiles in response to a speech in which Zelenskyy had pointedly referred to the G20 as G19, denying the legitimacy of Russia’s place at the table.
“Russia responds to Zelenskyy’s powerful speech at the G20 with a new missile attack,” he said.
Kyiv had expected a Russian escalation in connection to the meeting of leaders from 20 leading economies. A representative of the Air Force Command Yuri Ignat told Ukrainian media over the weekend: “They love to carry out some provocations on such days.”
Air alerts were reported throughout all areas of the country except for Russian-occupied Crimea.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said three residential buildings were struck in the capital and half the people were without power. The mayors of Lviv, Kharkiv and Rivne reported partial power outages.
Victoria Voytsitska, a former member of the Ukrainian parliament, wrote on Twitter that “80% of Lviv is without heat, water, electricity.”
Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba wrote on Twitter that the attacks were a sign Russia was not sincerely interested in peace talks.
“Russian missiles are killing people and ruining infrastructure across Ukraine right now. This is what Russia has to say on the issue of peace talks. Stop proposing Ukraine to accept Russian ultimatums! This terror can only be stopped with the strength of our weapons & principles,” he said.
